By Ray Hamill — The Ferndale Wildcats played like the defending state champs they are in Saturday’s Milk Can game.

This is a very well-coached team that is playing with a lot of confidence and belief right now and it showed late in Saturday’s game.

In what was an exciting, physical and back-and-forth showdown, the Fortuna Huskies drove deep into Ferndale territory late in the fourth quarter and appeared to be on their way to the go-ahead score.

But senior Jonah Anderson and the Ferndale defense had other ideas and a late interception ended the threat and secured a thrilling 29-26 win over their biggest rivals.

The victory also kept the Cats undefeated on the season as they improved to 3-0.

It was the program’s second Milk Can win in three years and will give these players some momentum heading into this weekend’s clash at Crusader Field against an unbeaten St. Bernard’s team that improved to 4-0 with a big win at Clear Lake over the weekend.

It will also give them plenty of momentum as they get set to kick off the Little 4 in two weeks and challenge a dominating Arcata Tigers team for the championship.

Check out the Milk Can highlights above, including all eight touchdowns and the postgame celebrations by the home team.

Tanner Pidgeon continued to play a pivotal role for the Wildcats and scored three TDs in the win, all three coming in the first half.

Fellow junior Prescott Langer also scored a TD for Ferndale, while Anderson not only came up with the game-sealing interception but also scored a big two-point conversion to put his team up by three in the fourth quarter.

There were plenty of highlights for the Huskies as well.

Junior running back Kavi Bolden has been very impressive in his first season at the varsity level and he scored two big touchdowns for the Huskies in the third quarter to help swing the momentum in their favor.

Bolden finished the game with 122 yards rushing on nine carries, while teammate Jake Houseworth added 93 yards on 13 carries.

Likewise with quarterback Chandler Crenshaw, who scored two first-half TDs to help keep his team in contention.

The biggest play of the game was Anderson’s interception, which kickstarted the late celebrations.

The Huskies, who dropped to 2-2, will try to bounce back when they travel to Redding this weekend to play University Prep.

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com