Wednesday was a busy one for the H-DNL teams in the North Coast Section soccer playoffs with six league teams in action.

The St. Bernard’s girls played in the Division-6 championship game, matching up against No. 1 seed Mendocino in Fort Bragg and they came away with a 2-1 victory.

The section title is the fourth in five years for the Crusaders, who were playing in their sixth consecutive NCS final.

They also won titles in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and lost last year’s championship game to Ferndale.

We’ll have lots more on St. Bernard’s big win on Thursday.

Also in girls action on Wednesday, the top-seeded Eureka girls kept their hopes of a fourth straight NCS title alive with a semifinal victory over league rivals Arcata in the afternoon.

But it took a penalty shootout to separate the two schools after they battled to a 1-1 tie in regulation and neither team could find the back of the net in overtime.

The Loggers will now play Fortuna in this weekend’s final after the Huskies also won their semifinal later on Wednesday, beating Del Norte 1-0.

We’ll have more on that game on Thursday as well.

In boys action, a memorable postseason run ended for the McKinleyville Panthers in their Division-1 semifinal at Making Waves Academy in Richmond.

The Panthers made some school history by going further in the playoffs than any McKinleyville team before them and they were the first No. 7 seeds to reach the semifinals since 2017.

But they came up just short in their bid for a first-ever championship game appearance, falling 3-1 to the No. 3 seeds to end their season.

Angelina Conant scored the only goal of the game for the Eureka girls, netting from a free kick.

Goalkeeper Peyton Graney had a memorable afternoon and scored the game-winning penalty kick in a well-played shootout.

Both teams scored on their first six PKs, before the Tigers hit the crossbar on their seventh attempt.

Graney, however, scored Eureka’s seventh attempt to send the top seeds on to the weekend decider.

“It was a really even match for the most part,” Eureka head coach Melania Valdez said. “And props to Arcata for really making us work for it. Arcata gave us a run for our money.”

Valdez in particular praised the play of her goalkeeper.

“It was a good team effort today,” she said. “But I’ve got to give a shoutout to Payton. PKs are not fun for any goalkeeper, and for her to be put under that amount of pressure and to come out and score the winning PK, I’m proud of her for sure.”

Eureka seniors Conant, Paige Rodgers and Lorena Hernandez will be looking to become the first players from the H-DNL to win four straight NCS winners medals in any sport.