Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – the Eureka and Arcata boys tied 2-2 in a preseason game at Eureka on Friday night.

By Ray Hamill —There will be league champions crowned in both boys and girls H-DNL soccer this fall, as the new season gets set to kick off this week.

After last season was delayed until the spring and shortened to a few weeks all because of the pandemic, this fall will feature a full schedule and a return to the North Coast Section playoffs.

There also will be league champs crowned for the first time since 2019.

On the boys side, the Fortuna Huskies appear to be the heavy favorites once again, as they look to add to their seven straight league titles, which really should be eight straight after they went undefeated in the spring.

The Huskies are off to a 3-0 start and have netted three goals in all three games, with senior standout Antonio Garcinuno scoring in all three.

They open the league campaign at home to Del Norte on Wednesday night.

Also scheduled for Wednesday night, in boys and girls action, Eureka travels to McKinleyville and Arcata plays at South Fork.

The Mack girls, who are also off to a 3-0 start, will play their midweek home games this year under the lights at the school stadium, with Wednesday’s big showdown set for 7 p.m.

The boys league race could be more competitive this year, if the likes of Eureka and Arcata can take that next step, although both teams lost to Fortuna over the weekend.

McKinleyville is replacing 10 players this year after graduating a large senior class, but the new players are coming together quickly in the preseason and could be ready to surprise some people.

The Del Norte Warriors, on the other hand, have one of the best coaches in the area in David Sanyaolu, and could also surprise some people this fall.

Still, it will be a major surprise if the Huskies aren’t the best team on the North Coast for the ninth straight year.

The race for the girls title, on the other hand, has traditionally been a little more difficult to call, and appears to be so again this fall.

The last four Big 5 titles have gone to three different schools.

Arcata won in 2016, Eureka in 2017 and 2018, and Fortuna in 2019.

While there was no official championship handed out last season, the undefeated Eureka girls would have won it comfortably had there been one.

This year, however, the Loggers have graduated seven very talented seniors from the spring, the majority of whom are now playing at the collegiate level, and replacing them will be a challenge.

The good news is they have deep junior and sophomore classes and should continue to be competitive.

How quickly they come together remains to be seen and that will be a key factor in deciding the league title.

A veteran Arcata team, meanwhile, could be the team to beat and will go into the new campaign as one of the favorites, while the Fortuna Huskies are two years removed from their league win but appear to have a whole new group of talented young players coming up and ready to challenge again.

McKinleyville, on the other hand, should continue to be competitive against the big three, with a core group of standouts as good as any in the league.