Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSpoprts.com – Action from Friday night’s game at Fortuna.

By Ray Hamill — The Fortuna Huskies scored touchdowns on four of their five first-half possessions on their way to a comfortable 34-0 win over the Arcata Tigers at Husky Field on Friday night.

The win lifts the Huskies to 2-0 on the season and once again it was a dominating performance in the trenches that paved the way to victory.

“We really encouraged our kids all week to come out and be aggressive and play physical and own the line of scrimmage,” head coach Mike Benbow said. “And we did a really nice job of that.”

Jake Houseworth and Caden Wilkinson each ran in for a pair of touchdowns in the first half and the home team took a comfortable 27-0 lead into the break.

Senior quarterback Chad Mussey ran in for his team’s fifth score of the night in the second half to ice another impressive win for the Huskies.

The victory, however, was secured on defense, which kept a potentially dangerous Arcata passing attack in check and didn’t give up a score all night.

“Our DBs did a nice job of keeping people in front of them and not giving up big plays,” Benbow said. “We tackled in space. We did everything we needed to do, and I was really happy with that.”

The Huskies took the lead on their opening possession, with Houseworth breaking through the middle and scoring from 22 yards out less than two minutes into the game.

After the Arcata defense forced a quick three and out on Fortuna’s next possession, the Huskies went back to work on their third drive of the night and quickly marched 67 yards to the end zone, scoring on a 33-yard Wilkinson run.

Kallen Barrote added the PAT to make it 14-0.

With the Fortuna defense continuing to cause the Tigers problems, the Huskies took over on offense again less than two minutes later and Wilkinson would cap a 65-yard drive with a three-yard TD run to stretch the lead.

Houseworth found the end zone a second time on the Huskies’ fifth drive of the night, running in untouched from six yards out to all but end the game before the interval.

The Fortuna offensive line was outstanding all night, with the starters — Ivan Moore (LT), Emmitt Lumpkin (LG), Dailyn Wallace (C), Kameron Elam (RG), Jason Torrez (RT) and Chandler Crenshaw (TE) — dominating a Tigers team that had impressed against Eureka in its opener the week before.

“They’re starting to come together and working really well together,” Benbow said of the unit. “Our entire line did a fantastic job.”

The Tigers dropped to 1-1 with the loss.

The Fortuna JVs also won their game.

No score was immediately available.

The Huskies will travel to McKinleyville next Friday night, while Arcata will host Hoopa at McKinleyville High the following night.