Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Hoopa’s Tatianna Colegreove in action at this week’s Charlie Lakin tournament.

By Ray Hamill — The H-DN baseball and softball teams won’t have to wait quite as long this year to find out their playoff seed and opening opponent.

Because of Mother’s Day on Sunday, the seeding committees will meet one day earlier than usual on Saturday before releasing the brackets later in the day.

As always, several local teams are expected to qualify, with the four league champions pretty much guaranteed to host an opening game.

The quality of the teams in the H-DN this spring — 11 teams have winning records — means there should be several other home games as well.

This week, nine H-DN teams are ranked in the top six in their brackets according to MaxPreps, including the St. Bernard’s boys, who are No. 1 in Division 6.

The Arcata boys and Del Norte girls are each ranked No. 2 in Division 4, with the Fortuna boys and Hoopa girls both one spot further back at No. 3.

The McKinleyville girls are No. 5 in Division 3, one spot ahead of Eureka, while the Ferndale boys are No. 4 in Division 6 and the Mack boys are No. 6 in Division 4, one spot ahead of Del Norte.

The Fortuna girls are also No. 6 in Division 4, while the SB girls are No. 7 in Division 5 and the Eureka boys are No. 8 in Division 3.

The action gets under way next Tuesday and Wednesday, with 13 of the 17 local varsity teams in the two sports likely to make the field.

Luke Brunton and the St. Bernard’s Crusaders are the top-ranked D-6 team in the NCS.