Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com
By Ray Hamill — Del Norte wasn’t in a sharing mood on Friday night.
With a league title on the line, the Warriors wore down Eureka with a relentless ground attack, blowing open a tight game with five second-half touchdowns on the way to a 48-19 win in Crescent City.
The victory gives Del Norte the Big 4 title outright and guarantees a home playoff game in Crescent City when the North Coast Section postseason gets under way in two weeks.
“They earned everything they got,” first-year head coach Nick White said of his players. “That was one of our goals to be outright league champions, and they worked extremely hard to achieve that.”
The loss ends the season for the Loggers, who needed a win to make the playoffs and close out 3-7, including an 0-3 mark in the Little 4.
They matched the home team stride for stride in an entertaining and back-and-forth first half, and trailed by just one point, 14-13, at halftime.
Senior quarterback Trevor Bell got his first start for Eureka in four weeks after returning from a rolled ankle, and was impressive passing the ball early to both Josiah Graham and Lamarie Dunn.
The second half, however, was a different story, with the home team wearing down the visitors with their physical and dominating ground attack.
“In the first half we had some struggles on defense,” White said. “Trevor Bell came back and he’s a good player. And then the ground game took over and we got things rolling in the second half.”
Particularly Chase Blackburn and Kobe Mitchell.
Blackburn amassed 255 yards on just 10 carries, including TD runs of 49 and 57, as the Warriors ran for 183 yards in the third quarter alone.
“Chase Blackburn was just unbelievable,” White said of the senior on senior night who also had an interception on defense. “That kid played ridiculous.”
Mitchell found the end zone four times, while impressive freshman RJ Loftin rounded out the scoring with a seventh Warriors rushing TD.
Another senior, defensive end Kai Baugh, also had a huge game, finishing with three sacks, as the Warriors defense put an exclamation point on the win with big back-to-back sacks by Baugh and Luke King late in the game to end a Eureka drive on downs.
Conversely, the Loggers went to the air, with Bell impressing early and completing 18-of-24 passes in the first half for 180 yards, including TD throws to Dunn, Graham and Trent Morrow.
Dunn and Graham each finished with more than 100 yards receiving.
Eureka won the JV game 38-20.
including an 0-3 mark in the Little 4.
EHS got demoted after losing to St. Bernards?
Where is Bill and St. Bernard’s anonymous, their school team is #2 in HDNL Big 4…and played the best against Del Norte…
Those two paritioner practioners were parochially parroting with their whining prematurely about “size”…even though their specificity has been zilch, not expeditiously attended too…
It was a Close first half. Great Game for Del Norte. 9th title in the time I have been around. One thing I will be curious bout. Probably 5 of the last 8 title Del Norte earned, We dominated league. One year our only loss was to Pittsburg, who went on to lose to De LaSalle in the final. Another year we went undefeated. I was working most of the last 28 years on our sideline as the Medical Guy. Something we never brought home was Coach Of The Year. I certainly think our coach was deserving a few of those years. Going to be curious what the leagues do this year.