Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Hoopa Warriors will host the Ferndale Wildcats without fans on Friday night.

By Ray Hamill — The H-DNL has issued a statement stressing that rumors circulating on social media saying that fans are now being allowed at the basketball games in Hoopa on Friday night are “entirely false.”

A decision was made on Thursday to play a triple-header of basketball games between Ferndale and Hoopa behind closed doors after emotions spilled over at a Wednesday night game between the schools’ boys teams at Ferndale High.

League commissioner Jack Lakin met with officials from both schools on Thursday, along with officials from the Six Rivers Basketball Officials Association and the North Coast Section.

According to the league, in response to Wednesday’s games, Ferndale and Hoopa High Schools jointly agreed ‘… due to circumstances from last night’s (Wednesday) games, we will play the games as scheduled (Friday night) at Hoopa with no fans from either school.”

Game officials said they were not comfortable officiating games in the sort of atmosphere they experienced on Wednesday.

“Our crews were not comfortable and not wanting to put themselves back in that environment,” said head of local officials Rollin Trehearne, who was one of the officials at Wednesday’s game.

Both schools, however, wanted to make sure that Friday’s games at least went ahead.

“The most important thing to me is the kids get to play the games,” Hoopa vice principal Doug Becksted said. “It’s about the kids, and if the refs don’t feel safe they shouldn’t be put in an unsafe environment.”

Friday night was scheduled to be senior night for the Hoopa players. 

The triple-header will feature JV boys at 4:30 p.m., varsity girls at 6 p.m,. And varsity boys at 7:30 p.m. and will be streamed live on the Klamath Trinity School District YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/c/KTJUSDYoutubeChannel.

Friday’s H-DNL statement added, “We thank the community members from both schools for understanding, respecting and cooperating with the decision.”