By Ray Hamill — It was a good week for the Arcata Tigers and the McKinleyville Panthers.

It was also a good week for Liam Dyer and the St. Bernard’s Crusaders.

The Big 5 and Little 4 basketball schedules tipped off this week with 18 teams in action and 12 games played over four days.

In the Big 5, the Arcata and McKinleyville boys won their opening two games to set up a huge matchup at Arcata next Friday in a showdown that will be for the conference lead.

The Panthers got the better of both Eureka and Del Norte in their games this week, while the Tigers beat Del Norte and Fortuna.

The Arcata boys will have a bye in conference play on Wednesday’s round three, while McKinleyville will host Fortuna.

If the Panthers win, they will take over sole possession of top spot in the standings before Friday’s big showdown with their biggest rivals.

Either way it should be a fantastic matchup, as it always is.

This past week, the Arcata and Eureka girls also got their conference campaign off to a successful start.

The Eureka girls won at McKinleyville, while Arcata defeated both Del Norte and Fortuna and sits atop the standings with a record of 2-0.

Photo by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – St. Bernard’s junior Liam Dyer was on fire from downtown in Friday’s game against Ferndale and finished with 32 points. Check out some of his big shots in our highlights above.

The two frontrunners will play each other a week from Tuesday in Eureka in what is likely to be a huge matchup that will go a long way towards deciding this year’s championship.

They also play at Arcata on the final night of league play on Feb. 7.

In the Little 4, the St. Bernard’s and Hoopa boys both won their conference openers on Friday, with the Crusaders beating Ferndale and Hoopa edging South Fork in a hard-fought game.

The Little 4 girls opened conference play on Thursday and it was a great start for defending champion St. Bernard’s, which won a tricky matchup at Ferndale.

The Hoopa girls also won their conference opener against South Fork.

The L4 schedule continues late next week, with games on Thursday (girls) and Friday (boys).

St. Bernard’s plays South Fork and Ferndale plays Hoopa.

The matchup between the SB and South Fork boys will take place at St. Bernard’s and should be another competitive showdown between two schools who each have won a conference championship in the past two seasons.

Check out some video highlights from several of this week’s games above.