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The McKinleyville Panthers continued their remarkable turnaround on the football field with another big win on Friday night.
Off to their best start in years, the Panthers improved to 4-1 on the season and 1-0 in the Little 4 with a 30-6 road win at Hoopa.
It is the team’s first win over the Warriors since 2009 and ended a seven-game losing streak to them.
Junior quarterback Jack Clancy threw two touchdown passes in the win, one each to Tyler Marsh and Mettah Kuska, while Jayson Rodriguez also scored a rushing touchdown.
But it was the team defense that once again paved the way to victory, giving up just six points to the home team.
In their four victories this season, the Panthers D has allowed a combined 12 points.
Kuska capped a good all-around night with a defensive TD, while Logan Maher continued to show why he might just be the best kicker on the North Coast this season with another long field goal to round out the scoring.
“We survived the mental battle,” said first-year head coach Fel Barlow, who had stressed to his players all week about the importance of winning the mental game in a showdown like this.
Jason Marshall scored the only TD of the game for the Warriors, who kept it close for much of the night and only trailed by a touchdown at halftime.
“We played a tough game, but what happened was we had a couple of injuries and a couple of miscues on defense, and (the players) knew,” Hoopa head coach Floyd “Cowboy” Billings said. “But it was a good battle when we were playing our game. We stopped them pretty good.”
Hoopa’s leading tackler Darvin Davis continued to impress in the loss, especially on defense, as did Lane Campbell and Gerard Marshall.
“Our defense played well,” Billings said. “We played hard between the 20s. They didn’t give up.”
The victory was the Panthers’ first at Hoopa in 13 years.
With the loss, Hoopa dropped to 1-2 on the season and 0-1 in the Little 4.
“The game’s over and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Billings said. “We’ve just got to come in on Monday and go to work again. I still believe in this team.”
Categories: Football, Hoopa Valley, McKinleyville
Hats off to McKinleyville for turning football around, but they have no business playing in the Little 4, same goes for Arcata. These high schools enrollment is way more than the enrollment at the traditional Little 4 schools.
It is time to put the Little 4 back together again, and put Arcata and McKinleyville back into the Big 5. The enrollment of Hoopa, Ferndale, St. Bernards, and South Fork combined aren’t at the same level as even Eureka High School.
This is a joke.