Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Arcata and Eureka girls will meet for the fourth time this season in the NCS championship game on Saturday.
By Ray Hamill — Here we go again.
Arguably the hottest rivalry in local high school sports will be renewed on the biggest stage of all on Saturday night, when Eureka and Arcata face off for the North Coast Section Division-1 girls soccer championship.
The game will be played at Albee Stadium with kickoff set for 7 p.m.
And these two teams should know each other pretty well by now.
Saturday’s game is not only the fourth showdown between them this season, but this is also the third consecutive postseason where they play each other.
They faced off in the 2018 NCS decider, which the Loggers won 4-1, and met again a year later in the semifinal, which the Arcata girls won in dramatic fashion thanks to a memorable Bailey Cherms overtime goal.
There was no postseason held in 2020 because of the pandemic, but the Loggers and Tigers would meet again in last season’s NCS championship game, which Eureka won on a penalty shootout.
Few teams have been as consistent in the postseason as the Tigers, who will be appearing in their fourth consecutive NCS championship game, having also lost 1-0 to Middletown in 2019.
However, they have yet to win an NCS crown and will be looking for an historic breakthrough this weekend, although it will be a difficult task.
The Loggers are the top seeds and are unbeaten this fall with a record of 14-0-2, whereas the Tigers are 9-4-2.
The Eureka girls got the better of Arcata in their first two league meetings by a combined score of 10-0, but the Tigers matched up well against them in the regular-season finale at Albee Stadium and came away with a 1-1 tie to deny the Loggers a perfect league campaign.
Interestingly, last year it was the Loggers who were 0-2-1 against the Tigers heading into the championship game before upsetting the odds against the top seeds.
This year, it’s the Tigers who are 0-2-1 against the top-seeded Loggers and looking to upset the odds.
As always when these two teams face off, it should be a fun game with both sides capable of pulling out the victory.
