Photos by Taunya Brunton – Action from the St. Bernard’s JV game at Fort Bragg on Friday night.

By Ray Hamill — While a few of the local JV squads have yet to kick off the new football season, it has been an impressive start for the others.

This past weekend, the McKinleyville, Del Norte and St. Bernard’s JVs all won, lifting the local programs to 6-0 combined on the season.

The McKinleyville Panthers, who have one of the hottest young teams in the area, won 22-8 on the road at Anderson, improving to 2-0 on the new season and 4-1 on the calendar year.

The Panthers also won 32-8 at Yreka in their opener 11 days ago.

Del Norte, meanwhile, won 28-18 at home to North Medford on Friday after previously taking care of Enterprise in their opener.

“They’re playing hard and they have a good group of sophomores. The majority of their starters are sophomores,” Del Norte varsity head coach Nick White said of the JVs. “They play hard, they block hard, and the running backs run super hard. They’re doing what they need to do to be successful.”

St. Bernard’s is fielding a JV team for the first time in four years and the Crusaders returned with a bang on Friday night, wining 18-12 at Fort Bragg in their season opener.

Quarterback Seth Brunton threw three TD passes to receiver Tyler Dimmick as a shorthanded roster travelled with just 13 players. 

Ethan Hagler and Paco Davila both had huge games on defense, finishing with four sacks each.

Photos by Taunya Brunton

“It was a great weekend for our program,” said varsity head coach Matt Tomlin, who stressed the importance of fielding a JV team for the program in order to develop the younger players.

The Fortuna JVs, meanwhile, are also 1-0 after taking care of Justin-Siena 36-0 in their opener 11 days ago.

Chad Mussey ran for two of his team’s four TDs in the win.

Eureka, Hoopa and Ferndale are also fielding JV teams this year, but none of them have been in action yet.