Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – St. Bernard’s playing at Eureka High last season.

By Ray Hamill — Let the mind games begin.

Maybe.

The local football season may still be a week off, but the rivalries are already back in full bloom, as St. Bernard’s was left out of a preseason scrimmage featuring the rest of the Big 4, scheduled for Eureka High on Friday evening.

According to St. Bernard’s head coach Matt Tomlin, his team was not invited and the Crusaders were left scrambling for a scrimmage at the last minute.

But according to Eureka head coach Jason White, he thought St. Bernard’s was going to scrimmage with the Little 4 teams, as the Crusaders did a year ago.

Previously the Big 4 or Big 5 teams always scrimmaged together in the preseason, as did the Little 4 programs, but the H-DNL voted to go away from that last year when scheduling concerns left several local teams scrambling late for scrimmages and many not getting them in.

The Loggers were forced to travel to the Santa Rosa area at the last minute to find a scrimmage, and White says he did not want a repeat of that this summer, especially with six of their 10 regular season games on the road.

Because of that, early in the preseason he invited Del Norte, Fortuna and Fort Bragg to Albee Stadium, three programs with which he has close ties.

“I honestly thought they would go scrimmage with the Little 4 teams,” the Eureka head coach said of the Crusaders. “That’s what they did last year.”

The Timberwolves have since been forced to back out of the scrimmage.

St. Bernard’s will now scrimmage against Ukiah on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. at Crusader Field.

The omission adds to a rivalry that heated up in 2018 when the two Eureka programs played each other for the first time since 1962 after St. Bernard’s was moved up to the Big 4.

Eureka won the game 54-21.

Eureka’s Trevor Bell will start at quarterback this season.

Friday’s scrimmage gets under way at 5 p.m. and will give fans a first look at the new Eureka and Fortuna teams, each of which graduated a lot of talent from successful rosters a year ago.

Del Norte will also have a new face in a key role, with long-time assistant Nick White taking over the head coaching duties this season.

Nick White is a younger brother of the Eureka head coach.

The Little 4 teams, meanwhile, will also get in some valuable scrimmage time this weekend, when all four squads head to Ferndale on Saturday.

The action gets under way at 1 p.m.

Also on Saturday, the Six Rivers Youth Football conference will hold its annual preseason jamboree at the Redwood Bowl.

A total of 23 teams will participate, with the scrimmage kicking off at 9 a.m.