Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Luke Lemke in action for the Tigers on Friday night.

By Ray Hamill — The race for the Big 5 championship in boys basketball took another turn on Friday night.

Playing in front of a packed gym at Arcata High, the Tigers toppled conference leaders McKinleyville 59-44 and avenged an earlier Big 5 loss to their biggest rivals.

In a highly-entertaining and intense game, the visitors battled back from a 12-point halftime deficit to pull within one at the end of the third quarter.

But with their championship hopes on the line, the Tigers responded in emphatic fashion and outscored the Panthers 21-7 in the final period to comfortably pull away.

The win lifts Arcata to 4-2 in conference (12-10 overall), while the McKinleyville boys dropped to 5-2 (16-9 overall).

The result means a wild Big 5 likely won’t be decided until the final night of action.

Arcata has two games remaining — at home against Eureka on Wednesday and at Del Norte next Friday — while the Panthers have one game remaining and will host Eureka next Friday.

Despite the loss, McKinleyville remains alone atop the conference standings and can still clinch at least a share of the title with a win over the Loggers.

They can still clinch it outright if they win their finale and the Tigers drop one of their two remaining games.

Also in action on Friday night, the Fortuna Huskies won 68-54 at Eureka to keep their Dick Niclai tournament hope alive.

The win lifted Fortuna to 3-4 in conference (14-9 overall), while Eureka dropped to 3-3 and 13-11.

At Arcata, the Tigers went back to what they do best and it paid off.

“We kind of changed it up a little bit,” head coach Kellen Maynard said. “We went to our full court press and tried to mix up our defense a little bit.

“We just decided we wanted to play the game at our pace. I feel like we haven’t played with the pace we’d like.”

Maynard admitted part of that was his fault as the team dealt with some key injuries this season.

“Since last (week’s loss to Fortuna) we watched some film and we’ve been getting after it in practice,” the coach added. “We didn’t have an easy practice this week. We ran and ran and ran, and the guys responded.”

The strategy worked and after weathering the storm in the third quarter, when they got outscored 19-8, they finished the stronger of the two teams.

“It was fun to watch,” Maynard said. “We subbed a lot of guys. Nobody played more than a couple of minutes at a time.”

Junior Dawson Vallerga scored a game-high 18 points in the win, while Luke Lemke added 15 points and Dayquan Dunn finished with 10 points.

The Tigers also welcomed back influential senior Kalani Butor, who has missed several games through injury, although reigning conference MVP Luke Moxon remains sidelined.

“Kalani played some good minutes and did well,” the coach said.

Sophomore Jack Luh also impressed for the home team while taking on a bigger role in such a pivotal showdown.

“It was a very physical game tonight and Jack Luh, with the way we were rotating guys, he got a lot of minutes,” Maynard said. “For a sophomore, I thought he probably played one of his most physical and aggressive games tonight. I was super proud of the minutes he put in tonight.”

Flynn Creigton played a key role in the third-quarter rally for the visitors and finished with a team-high 15 points and eight rebounds, while Bode Douglass added 11 points and Cole Armstrong finished with eight points.

“Coach Maynard had a nice game plan tonight, throwing a couple of defensive looks that they haven’t shown us all season,” McKinleyville head coach Chris Davis said. “We’ve played against those defenses earlier this season, but really didn’t execute well for most of the game outside of the third quarter.

“In games like these it’s typically the team that handles pressure and composes themselves better throughout the game (that wins) and tonight that was Arcata.”

As usual when these two rivals meet, a packed house of fans was treated to an exciting and hard-fought showdown.

And the result means both teams still have plenty to play for.

“Eureka and Del Norte have our full attention,” Maynard said. “It was a good win and I got to enjoy it on the drive home. Now it’s time to think about Eureka.”

We knew it was going to be a wild race for the championship and the league has lived up to that billing.

“I was telling the guys at the beginning of the year that 6-2 would probably win league,” Maynard said. “This league is so crazy this year.

“The fact we’re 4-2 right now, with what we had to deal with, I couldn’t be more proud of the guys.

“Obviously we’re right back in the thick of things. We have to now shift our focus to Eureka. It’s such an unpredictable league.”

The Huskies, meanwhile, were led by Jake Houseworth, who scored a team-high 18 points against Eureka, while Alfonso Medina added 11 points.

Russell Pascascio also had a big night for the Huskies and added 10 points, including eight in the second half, while teammate Kobe Spaulding finished with nine points.

No stats were immediately available for the Loggers.