Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — It was a good week on the basketball courts for one local school in particular.

As we head towards the final few weeks of the high school basketball season, two teams took a big step towards a conference championship this past week.

And that makes them this week’s Humboldt Sports co-teams of the week.

The Arcata girls and boys basketball teams both recorded pivotal wins to move clear at the top of their respective Big 5 standings.

The boys defeated their closest challengers, McKinleyville, 61-47 on Friday night and followed that with an even more dominating 77-43 win over Eureka on Wednesday.

They head into a Friday night showdown at Del Norte having won five straight games, including four straight in the Big 5.

And by the looks of things, they’re peaking at the right time and will be tough to stop over the coming weeks as we close out the regular season and get set for the Dick Niclai tournament.

The Arcata girls have been equally impressive.

On Tuesday night they traveled to Eureka and handed the host Loggers and three-rimes defending Big 5 champs their first conference loss in two years.

Even more impressive was the manner in which the victory was achieved.

The Tigers trailed by 13 points early in the second half, but rallied for a 52-45 win to push them ahead of the defending champs in the conference standings.

the Arcata girls followed that with a comfortable 61-43 win over Del Norte on Thursday, which was their fifth win in six games and lifted them to 5-0 in the Big 5.

TEAMS OF THE WEEK

Arcata Boys Basketball

Head coach Kellen Maynard has enjoyed plenty of success with the program in recent years, but rarely during that time have his teams looked as dominating as they do this season.

For the first month of the campaign, the Tigers were short-handed because some of their key players were still playing football, and they also had to battle some injuries.

Now that they’re at full strength, however, the Tigers are starting to find their groove with several players stepping up as we head towards a pivotal part of the season.

Players like Luke Moxon, Luke Lemke, Dawson Vallerga, Eric Jackson, Jack Luh, Levi Sims and Dayquan Dunn, among others, are all enjoying big seasons and the Tigers have more depth than any other team in the H-DNL.

They still have some tricky games to navigate before the local season is done, including a huge matchup at McKinleyville early next month, but if they continue to play like they did this past week they’ll be tough to stop in their pursuit of a Big 5 and Dick Niclai championship double.

For more on their big week, see Tigers cruise to another big win; Warriors rally late …

Arcata Girls Basketball

In just his second year in charge, head coach Charlie Espinoza is doing an exceptional job of overseeing the Arcata girls team and he has them on the verge of a first conference championship since 2018.

Espinoza certainly has plenty of talent at his disposal, but he has the Tigers playing with a hunger and tenacity this year that most teams in the area have trouble matching.

With their win over the Warriors on Thursday, the Arcata girls improved to 5-0 in the Big 5 and now need just two more wins to clinch at least a share of this year’s Big 5 title.

There are numerous standouts on this year’s team, including the Wolford sisters, Tae and Mae, who lead the Tigers in scoring, as well as influential seniors Mayleah Jackson, Leitala Vainuku and Addison Wingate and impressive sophomore Jocilyn O’Donnell, among many others.

Few teams in the area have players that fight as hard for each other as the Tigers, and if they continue to believe in themselves they’ll be tough to stop in both the Big 5 and Dick Niclai tournament.

For more on their big week, see Big comeback keeps Tigers unbeaten; Warriors win …