Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Action from Saturday’s championship game at Arcata High.

A short-handed Arcata team played in a tournament championship game for the second straight week on Saturday, but unfortunately for the Tigers they also lost in a championship game for the second straight weekend.

Still playing without several of their players who traveled to Southern California for Saturday night’s state championship football game, the Tigers fell to Montgomery 53-48 in the final of their own tournament.

The Tigers overcame a sizable early deficit and led going into the fourth quarter but they were unable to hold on down the stretch with the Vikings making a couple of big 3s late to help secure the win.

“We just couldn’t quite get back into it,” Arcata head coach Kellen Maynard said of the final few minutes.

Luke Moxon scored a team-high 20 points for the host school, while teammate Dawson Vallerga also continued to impress and added 11 points.

Junior forward Jack Luh chipped in eight points and helped keep his team in the game in the first half with an industrious performance.

“By far Jack’s best game of the year,” is how Maynard described it.

The Vikings’ 3-point shooting was the big difference in the game.

“We just didn’t guard the perimeter very well tonight,” Maynard said.

The good news for the Tigers going forward is that they will finally have their full complement of players available next week, as they get set to head to the Red Bluff tournament, which gets under way on Thursday.

“We’ll be a little big deeper,” Maynard said. “We’ll have a few more options.”

The Tigers are now 6-2.

Eureka 79, Piner 71

Elijah Estrada and Will Mooney each had a double-double in what the Eureka coaches described as a gutsy performance by the Loggers in their tournament finale in the third-place game at Arcata on Saturday.

Estrada scored 19 points, to go with 10 rebounds and three steals, and Mooney added 19 points, 10 boards and two steals, as the Loggers closed out tournament play 2-1 and improved to 5-1 on the season.

“I thought we played pretty gutsy,” Eureka assistant coach Andrew DeHart said. “I felt like our team defense did a great job down the stretch.”

They had to play good defense going up against Piner sharpshooter Apollo Pereira, a senior who came into the game averaging 28.8 points a game and scored a game-high 39 in the loss.

Trenton Gerber and Jerome Lyons were tasked with guarding Pereira and they did a good job despite the high-scoring day for the senior.

With the game in the balance late, Lyons also crucially tracked down a long rebound to give possession to the Loggers, a play that DeHart described as “huge.”

“I felt as though that rebound, combined with two crucial charges taken on defense by Mooney and (Ryder) Mitchell in the fourth, as well as our unselfishness on offense down the stretch, were keys to us securing the win,” the coach added.

Mitchell added 16 points and Gerber scored 15.

“Offensively, we felt as though our team did a great job of finding the open man and our scoring distribution reflects that,” DeHart said. 

“All year we’ve been preaching the importance of sharing the basketball and finding the best shot , and for the most part we did that well today.”

The Fortuna boys also were in action at the Arcata tournament this weekend.

Cloverdale 68, South Fork 53

The Cubs lost their final game at the Cloverdale tournament, falling to the host school by 15.

Shawn Schmidt scored a team-high 14 points for the Cubs, who dropped to 5-3 after going 1-2 in tournament play.

Wesley Way was named all-tournament for the South Fork boys and finished with 12 points.

“We played flat and had no energy,” South Fork head coach Taylor Morrow said. “I hope we can find ourselves next week.”

St. Bernard’s 69, Yreka 46

The Crusaders won for the second straight day at the Mt. Shasta tournament, and more importantly they turned in a very good performance.

Junior Liam Dyer capped an outstanding tournament with a team-high 25 points in the win, just one day after he scored 35 in a victory over Lassen.

“This was an excellent game for us on both sides of the ball,” SB assistant coach Pat Shanahan said. “We had fewer breakdowns and demonstrated a better understanding of what we are trying to accomplish.”

Garrett Shanahan added 14 points in the win, while Carson Costa and Trenton Hagler each finished with 11 points.

With the win, the Crusaders improved to 4-2 on the season.

Next up, they play at the Kelseyville tournament next weekend.

McKinleyville 52, Fortuna 46

Red Bluff 52, Fortuna 41

The Panthers bounced back from two straight losses in tournament play with a six-point victory over their Big 5 rivals on Saturday.

Jack Stacy finished with 17 points for the Huskies and was named to the all-tournament team, while teammate Lolo Payne added 10 points and Jace Barsanti finished with nine.

Those three players also had good games in a loss to Red Bluff on Friday night.

Barsanti had a good all-around performance in that game and finished with eight points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals.

Stacy had 17 points and four assists, while Payne chipped in 10 points and four assists.

Saturday’s loss was the sixth straight for Fortuna, which dropped to 3-6.

No stats or details were available for McKinleyville.

Coaches are encouraged to forward details to Humboldt Sports if they would like to see their teams included in our roundups.

Submitted photo

Del Norte 72, Anderson Valley 31

Michael Webster and the Warriors closed out the Cloverdale tournament with a dominating win on Saturday.

The game was close for the first quarter and the two teams were tied 11-11 going into the second, but after that it was all one-way traffic.

Del Norte head coach Cris Rice described it as a “team win” and a “good tournament for us.”

After opening tournament play with a tough loss to eventual champion Rancho Cotate, a Division-2 school, the Del Norte boys posted lopsided wins over Orland and Anderson Valley as they improved to 6-2 on the season.

Webster played well in all three games for the Warriors and was named to all-tournament team.

Rice also paid tribute to Cloverdale High, which he said “were great hosts.”

Next up, the Del Norte boys will host Brookings on Tuesday night before traveling to compete in next weekend’s Anderson tournament.