Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — The results are in and Humboldt Sports fans have spoken.

The Arcata Tigers are the favorites to win this year’s Little 4 in football, but not by a whole lot.

For the past week, we’ve run a poll asking our readers who they think will take home the league championship this fall.

The Tigers earned 41.2 percent of the votes cast, making them the frontrunners.

But one team wasn’t that far back, with the Ferndale Wildcats earning 35.2 percent of the votes.

The McKinleyville Panthers were third with 22 percent, with the Hoopa Warriors a distant fourth after receiving 1.6 percent of votes cast.

League play kicks off this weekend, with Ferndale hosting McKinleyville on Saturday afternoon, followed by Arcata and Hoopa at McKinleyville High later in the day.

As our poll results would suggest, the Tigers and Wildcats have been the two most impressive of the four teams during the early season.

The Tigers are 2-2, including a big win over Eureka, and appear to be getting better as the season progresses.

They also have a deep pool of athletic skill players and are physical in the trenches.

The Wildcats also are 2-2, barely losing their opening game in overtime to Fall River, before back-to-back wins.

Their most recent game was two weeks ago when they fell hard to Fortuna in the Milk Can game, and how they respond from that will go a long way toward defining their L4 campaign.

The Panthers, meanwhile, have yet to win a game and are 0-4, but they have had the toughest early season schedule of all four teams and have been playing with just 13 players.

They should have a slightly bigger roster for league play and the competition will get a little bit easier.

Hoopa also has struggled early in the season, and the Warriors kick off league play with a record of 1-3, with their only win coming in double overtime against South Fork.

However, don’t expect the Warriors to be a pushover for anyone.

This is a team that has had battle injuries more than any other Little 4 team and should be better in league play as they get healthy and their younger players gain more experience.

A big thank you to all of our readers who responded to our Little 4 poll.