Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Del Norte players celebrate a win at last weekend’s McKinleyville tournament.
By Ray Hamill — The Del Norte Warriors look like the team to beat once again in this year’s H-DNL in boys soccer.
The defending champions return almost all of their players from their 2023 title-winning squad and have hit the ground running after winning all four of their games at last weekend’s McKinleyville tournament.
The Warriors certainly won’t lack experience and have an outstanding defense.
They also got a big boost early this season with the return of Mario Ledezma, who was their top scorer two years ago but missed all of last year through injury.
But like many local fans, head coach David Sanyaolu is expecting the league to be very competitive and wide open once again this fall after one of the most exciting races in decades last fall that went right down to the wire.
“We need to be ready to battle because it’s going to be very close,” the coach said. “It’s going to be very, very tough and that makes it exciting.”
This year’s team captains include Brandt Pennington — whom Sanyaolu describes as “one of our most important figures last year” — along with fellow seniors Saxon Taylor and Adrian Contreras-Sanchez.
Pennington will play on the right wing, while Taylor will help set the tone at the back as a defensive midfielder and Contreras-Sanchez will help set the offense in motion as an attacking midfielder.
Sanyaolu described Taylor as “one of our most hard-working players.”
The Del Norte defense will see some changes this year as the unit looks to continue its remarkable success from a year ago.
Senior Greyson Franklin is back to anchor the back line and he will be joined by multi-sport standout Lyon Rigden, who has made the switch from midfield to defense for this season.
Ledezma will once again feature in attack and he hit the ground running at the McKinleyville tournament, scoring a hat trick in a 5-1 win over Arcata in the final.
He will be joined in attack by speedy junior Deken Hanks, who led the Warriors in scoring last year and would go on to set a new H-DNL record in the 100 meters in the spring.
Most of all, however, Sanyaolu like this team’s drive as they look to repeat as league champs and take home just the program’s third-ever league title.
“I like their hunger to repeat and their desire to get better,” the head coach added. “They want to do better, so hopefully everything goes our way and we can repeat and have a deeper run in the playoffs.”
The Warriors did lose to Fortuna in a non-league game on Tuesday by a score of 1-0 in Crescent City.
And that just backed the coach’s belief that the league will be a dog fight once again.
“From what I saw in the tournament, it’s going to be one hell of a league,” he said.
After playing at the Upper Lake tournament this weekend, the Warriors will kick off league play at home against Eureka next Tuesday.
