File photo – The Del Norte Warriors

The H-DN was well represented at this year’s North Coast Section Dual Meet Championships, which were held at American Canyon High School on Saturday.

League champion Del Norte received an automatic bid for the Division-2 Redwood Empire championships, while Hoopa received an at-large berth for the Division-3 championships.

And both teams placed second in their brackets.

Despite matching up against far larger schools, the Del Norte boys were seeded No. 1 in their division and made it to the final for the fourth consecutive postseason tournament.

The Warriors comfortably won their opening match against Piner by a score of 75-6 and followed that with a 35-29 win over Casa Grande in the semifinal.

They lost the final to No. 2 seed Ukiah for the fourth straight year, falling 43-19.

“We’re glad we did what we did, but we definitely had big expectations as the No. 1 seed,” Del Norte head coach Clinton Schaad said. “Overall we wrestled pretty well. We had nice victories over Piner and Casa Grande.”

Chulhs Bates, Eric Stansbury, Isaac Lopez and Jase Mintonye each went 3-0 in their three matchups to lead the way.

“It’s a tough tournament,” the head coach said. “You’re wrestling the best teams from those areas. The good news is we’re still going and we’ve got some more wrestling.”

The final didn’t quite go as hoped, but Schaad was more than happy with the effort of his grapplers.

“The boys wrestled tough all day,” he said. “We had some hiccups, but that’s why it’s a team effort. In the final we came out a little flat and we lost some close matches that were definitely close.”

The Del Norte wrestlers will now turn their attention to this weekend’s H-DN Championships, which will be held at Fortuna on Saturday.

The Warriors will be expected to compete for individual titles in several of the 14 weight classes as well as a team championship.

The top three wrestlers in each weight class will advance to next week’s NCS championships.

Hoopa, meanwhile, also received the No. 2 seed in their NCS dual meet bracket and also finished 2-1.

The Warriors opened the day with a comprehensive 71-9 win over St. Vincent de Paul and followed that with a 49-27 win over Justin-Siena.

They lost the final 45-33 to No. 1 Willits.