Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Eureka girls celebrate their Dick Niclai championship win last year.
By Ray Hamill — The H-DNL has announced the dates and venues for this year’s Dick Niclai tournaments, with three big doubleheaders scheduled and a return to Lumberjack Arena for the championship games for the first time in three years.
The week-long postseason tournament, which features 10 games, will tip off on the first Monday in February and will run for five straight days.
The championship games will be played on that Friday at Cal Poly Humboldt, returning to the Division-II arena after a hiatus the past two winters because of the pandemic.
Last year, the championship games were hosted by the higher seeds and played at Arcata and Eureka high schools, while there was no tournament held the previous season.
Not only will the finals return to Lumberjack Arena, but all four semifinals will take place at College of the Redwoods on back-to-back nights, giving local fans three consecutive nights of postseason doubleheaders featuring the best teams in the H-DNL.
The boys semifinals will be held on the Wednesday at 6 and 7:30 p.m., with the girls teams playing for a berth in the championship game the following day, also at 6 and 7:30 p.m.
The championship games will also start at 6 and 7:30 p.m., with the girls going first.
The boys tournament begins on the Monday, with the No. 2 seeds in both the Big 5 and Little 4 hosting the No. 3 seeds from the same league.
The girls tip off on Tuesday, with the same format.
Games on both those days will be played at 7 p.m.
Submitted photo – The Arcata boys celebrate their Nick win last year.
H-DNL, NCS and CIF passes only will be accepted, with regular season admission prices for first-round and semifinal games.
Only NCS and CIF passes will be allowed for the championship games, with admission costing $10 (children 5 and under will be permitted for free).
The Arcata Tigers are the defending boys champions after defeating McKinleyville in the decider, while the Eureka girls are the two-time defending girls champions (2022 and 2020) after getting the better of Arcata in last year’s final.
Categories: Arcata, Basketball, Del Norte, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Hoopa Valley, McKinleyville, South Fork, St. Bernard's
Thank you for the info on the tournament. It’s very comprehensive but hard to keep straight. Is there a bracket you could post? Also, how would we get tickets for the semifinals and finals? Thank you.