The Fortuna Huskies moved into a tie with the Arcata Tigers atop the H-DNL standings on Saturday with two games each remaining.

The Huskies posted their fourth straight league win, defeating the Panthers 3-1 at McKinleyville, while the Tigers lost for just the second time in league play, falling 2-1 to Eureka at Arcata High.

That leaves both frontrunners with identical 8-2 records (16 points) and four points clear of the chasing pack.

The Del Norte Warriors, who had a bye on Saturday, remain right on their heels with a record of 5-2-2 (12 points) after their 5-1 win over South Fork on Thursday, and they have a game in hand.

The Huskies trailed early in their game on Saturday but rallied with three unanswered goals for the victory.

Jesus Herrera, Hector Diaz and Oliver Cortes all scored in the win.

“We went down early again, but built into the match and started finding some rhythm,” Fortuna head coach Daniel Holmes said. 

Herrera continued to impress for the Fortuna boys on the front line and has been a team leader this fall.

Goalkeeper Payson Johnston also impressed in the win, keeping the McKinleyville attack at bay for much of the afternoon.

The loss for the Panthers ended a five-game unbeaten run in league.

Senior Wesley Wolven scored their only goal of the game on senior day.

The Panthers were without standout defender Gaelen Creighton, who has been enjoying a very good season but missed the game through injury.

Rylee Collart impressed in the loss, as he has been doing for much of the season, but McKinleyville was unable to add to their tally after taking the lead.

“Rylee once again showed up and created a bunch of chances,” Mack head coach Ryne Deppe said. “It was one of those losses where we showed a lot of fight throughout the whole game and can hold our heads high, especially without Gaelen.”

Deppe also praised the performance of the Huskies.

“Fortuna played well,” he said. “Credit to the players and Danny (Holmes). Their system and shape with the ball are top notch.”

McKinleyville is now 4-2-2 in league play.

At Arcata, meanwhile, the Eureka boys bounced back from last week’s disappointing 8-1 loss to McKinleyville with their fourth league win.

Levi Grossman netted both goals in the second half, as the Loggers rallied from an early 1-0 deficit.

Daniel Rodriguez assisted on the opening strike and Grossman scored the winner eight minutes from time after dribbling past the Arcata keeper.

“I thought it was a great team performance for us,” Eureka head coach Tommy Learmouth said. “We’ve been working hard all week. The boys were not happy after the McKinleyville game last week, but instead of blaming each other and being hard on each other, they just said we need to do better.

“We put in a great week of practice and showed up today ready to go.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them as a coach.”

Izaiah Grosveld scored the only goal of the game for Arcata on a first-half penalty kick, but the league leaders were unable to find the back of the net after that.

“We made some mistakes building out of the back and they capitalized on our mistakes,” Arcata head coach John Davidson said.