Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Little 4 championship will be decided in Ferndale on Saturday afternoon.

By Ray Hamill — Arcata and Del Norte have already clinched at least a share of their conference championships in football this fall, but the question now is can they claim the title outright.

That will be answered on the final day of the regular season, as both the Big 4 and Little 4 go down to the wire on what will be a busy and exciting Saturday afternoon for local football fans.

The schedule makers did not disappoint us with the lineup for the final day of the regular season.

At Ferndale, the Wildcats and Arcata Tigers will battle it out for the Little 4 championship, while just a few miles away St. Bernard’s will entertain Del Norte at Crusader Field in a game that will decide the Big 4 title.

Both of those games are set for 2 p.m.

But that’s not all.

Also on Saturday afternoon, College of the Redwoods will play for the first time in almost a month in a game that will go a long way towards deciding whether the Corsairs can win a conference championship this year.

After a pair of byes and a forfeit win over the past three weekends, the Corsairs will return to action against De Anza College in a showdown between two teams that are unbeaten in the American-Pacific 7 Conference.

CR, which has four straight wins, is 3-0 in conference and 6-1 overall, while De Anza is 2-0 in conference and 7-0 overall.

Siskiyous (3-0 and 6-2) also comes into the weekend unbeaten in the American-Pacific 7 Conference and remains in contention for the conference championship.

Redwoods will close out the regular season at Siskiyous on Nov. 23 in what will likely be another key game.

College of the Redwoods

The McKinleyville Panthers will play at Hoopa on Friday night.

Saturday’s game at the Redwood Bowl is also set for 2 p.m., giving local football fans a lot of options.

In addition to the three big games on Saturday afternoon, there are three other local high school varsity games set for Friday night, including another key showdown in the Big 4.

The Eureka Loggers will travel to Fortuna to play the Huskies with plenty on the line, and the winner of that showdown has a shot at sharing the Big 4 championship, depending on how Saturday’s game at Crusader Field goes.

Both Eureka and Fortuna are 1-1 in conference play heading into the final game of the regular season and both will likely need to win that game to be playoff eligible.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.

The Del Norte Warriors are 2-0 in the Big 4 heading into this weekend’s conference finale.

And rounding out a busy weekend of games here on the North Coast, on Friday night Hoopa will entertain McKinleyville and South Fork hosts Stuart Hall.

The Panthers will be eager to close out the season with their first win in two years, while a young Hoopa team will be hoping to complete the conference sweep over their Little 4 rivals and head into the offseason with some momentum.

The Warriors won an entertaining and closely-fought showdown between the two schools at McKinleyville three weeks ago.

That game also kicks off at 7:30 p.m.

South Fork, meanwhile, appears to have done enough to qualify for the four-team NCS eight-person Division-1 playoffs, but ion they can knock off a Start Hall team that is No. 1 in the rankings that would give them an added boost heading into the playoffs.

The game in Miranda kicks off at 6 p.m.

It should be a fun weekend.