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

By Ray Hamill — The Arcata Tigers celebrated a large and hugely influential senior class on Tuesday night, and then proceeded to dominate Fortuna to remain unbeaten in conference play in boys basketball.

The big 5 frontrunners, who improved to 6-0 in conference play and moved within one win of clinching at least a share of this year’s championship, led 46-15 at halftime and ran out to a 77-44 win.

Head coach Kellen Maynard gave all 10 of his seniors some playing time, including nine who saw action in the opening quarter, all of whom scored in the win.

The senior class includes Ronnie Rieke, Dawson Vallerga, Luke Moxon, Lucian Rodiguez, Finn Warner, Eric Jackson, Levi Sims, Dayquan Dunn, Lennon Gieder and team manager Cam Narwold, the latter of whom played with the team last winter.

All but Dunn and Rieke have been the program for four years and Moxon is a four-year varsity player.

And Maynard, in his fourth year as the head coach of the team, believes all of them have had a big impact with the Tigers.

“It’s just been so fun and rewarding to watch them grow from their freshmen years to where they are now,” he said. “It’s a really good group of kids.

‘They’ve definitely tested my patience at times and I have a few more grey hairs now than I did, but you can’t ask for more from this group and they’re reaping the rewards right now. I’m just super proud of their effort tonight.”

This group of players still has plenty of work to take care of before they walk away and on Tuesday they took another big step towards this year’s conference championship.

A win in in their next game at McKinleyville next Tuesday would be good enough to clinch the championship outright.

Also on Tuesday, the Panthers won 61-38 at Del Norte and improved to 5-1 in the Big 5 and keep their championship hopes alive.

Dunn led the way for the Tigers offensively and finished with a game-high 11 points in the win, while Sims added nine points, all on 3-pointers, and Moxon and Luke Lemke each finished with eight points.

Vallerga, Lucian Rodriguez each chipped in seven points, Jonah Morgan had six points and Heron Cromwell and Geider both finished with five points.

“I wasn’t overly excited with the first few possessions. I thought we were a little amped up,” Maynard said. “But for us, it was obviously a very special and rare occasion. There was a lot of emotion, a lot of energy.

“Once we settled down and got a couple pf shots, it kind of helped everybody settle into the game.”

Narwold also saw some game time for the Tigers in the fourth quarter.

The loss for the Huskies drops them to 0-5 in the Big 5 and 8-14 overall.

Bryson Gilliam and Jake Houseworth each scored a team-high eight points for the visitors, while Jack Gonzalez added five points and Jace Barsanti, Chandler Crenshaw and Blayne Barrote each chipped in four points.