Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Action from the weekend tournament at Arcata High School.

The Northern Humboldt Giants completed an impressive weekend with a 9-1 win over the Southern Humboldt 76ers in the championship game of their tournament on Sunday evening.

The top three spots in the tournament went to the three local teams competing, with Wild Cactus Baseball shutting out Paradise 9-0 in five innings in the third-place game earlier in the day.

Fresh off his impressive spring playing for the Hoopa Warriors, Lyle McKinnon pitched a complete-game for the Giants in Sunday’s final.

The soon-to-be high school senior gave up just one run on four hits and struck out six on his way to the victory.

“He did fantastic job,” Giants head coach Eric Agliolo said. 

And he did so with a low pitch count, throwing around 80 pitches over the seven innings.

Cole Zeller had the offensive highlight of the game, hitting a two-run home run in the second inning to help set the tone early in the game.

Zeller, who finished 2-for-3, also had a double, as did teammate Ben Lukens.

Tanner Kees, Aidan Rice, Rhythm Green, Mateo Reiman and Jake Brunner each also had a hit in the win, as the Giants closed out tournament play with three wins in three games and improved to 12-5 on the season.

“They’re doing great,” Agliolo said of his players, who have now won three games against the 76ers this summer. “They’re a super cool group of kids. The whole group, they’re baseball players, they want to be baseball players. They’re a very coachable group.”

Despite Sunday’s loss, the 76ers also enjoyed an impressive weekend, winning two of their three tournament games on their way to reaching Sunday’s final.

“Credit to Northern Humboldt for sure,” 76ers head coach Dylan Feierabend said. “Their bats came out swinging. They got to us early and we were never really able to recover from there. Sadly it wasn’t our day.”

There were, however, several bright spots for the 76ers over the weekend.

Kallen Barrote impressed at the plate in Sunday’s loss and finished with a double, while Austin Michel had a single to left field to drive in his team’s only run of the game.

Tanner Pidgeon also had a base hit.

The 76ers, who have not played as many games as the Giants, are now 3-4 on the season and are coming into their own.

“I thought the one thing we did better (this weekend) is we started playing together as a team,” Feierabend said. “We were more engaged. More talkative. We’re starting to come together in that respect.”

The 76ers also got some big performances out of incoming South Fork High freshman Mason Bell, who was added to the team just before the weekend to fill out the roster.

“The kid didn’t make a mistake,” Feierabend said of Bell, who impressed defensively at second base and also saw some time on the mound. “South Fork’s got a good one.”

Bell was one of several 76ers to impress on defense.

“I can’t complain about our defense. Our defense has been solid,” said Feierabend, who added “We’ve got some work to do at the plate.”

The 76ers managed just eight runs in their three tournament games.

Next up, the Giants will host the Humboldt Eagles on Tuesday night, while the 76ers will play a doubleheader in Petaluma on Wednesday before returning home to play the Eagles in Fortuna on Thursday night.

The Wild Cactus, meanwhile, comfortably took care of business against Paradise in Sunday’s third-place game to close out tournament play 2-1.

A pair of St. Bernard’s players combined on the mound, with soon-to-be sophomore Garrett Shanahan getting the start and Kaiwi Sharp of St. Bernard’s Middle School closing out the game.

Shanahan threw four strong scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and three walks and striking out five.

The young Sharp, who was one of numerous pre-high school players to impress for the Wild Cactus team this weekend, pitched one hitless inning in relief.

Quentin Ikeya continued his impressive weekend at the plate and was 2-for-3 with three RBIs, while middle schoolers Teyler Bailey and Mason Long each went 1-for-1, with Bailey driving in two runs and Long one.

Sharp rounded out a good all-around day by going 1-for-3 with two RBIs.

“It was a great weekend for Wild Cactus,” head coach Matt Tomlin said. “I was very happy with the balanced production of our high school players combined with some great performances out of our young kids.”

Next up, Wild Cactus will play a doubleheader against the 76ers in Fortuna on Friday at 4 p.m., followed by a doubleheader against Brookings at St. Bernard’s on Saturday at 1 p.m.