Submitted photo – The McKinleyville Panthers celebrate their NCS dual championship at Ukiah on Saturday.

H-DNL wrestling has become a force to be reckoned with in the North Coast Section.

On Saturday, the local league claimed two of the four NCS dual championships for the second straight year.

The Del Norte Warriors won the Division-2 Redwood Empire championship for the second straight year, while the McKinleyville Panthers won the Division-3 title, following the success of the Hoopa Warriors in 2024.

This was the 20th season that the NCS has held dual championship tournaments, and after winning just once in the first 18 years, the H-DNL has now won four of the eight dual tournaments over the past two seasons.

“It was pretty exciting,” McKinleyville head coach Virgil Moorehead said. “We’ve been fighting sickness like everybody, but the kids wrestled really well.”

This was the second NCS dual championship for both winning programs.

Moorehead and the Panthers won the H-DNL’s first-ever title in 2014.

Both finals went down to the very last match.

The Panthers were seeded No 1 in the D-3 tournament, which was held at Ukiah High School, and after defeating No. 4 Clear Lake 49-27 in their semifinal, they advanced to wrestle No. 2 Willits in the final.

The Wolverines held a slight advantage heading into the final two matches, but McKinleyville’s Kevin Smith stepped up in one of the biggest matches of his young career and overturned a 7-1 deficit in the third round with a pin at 138 pounds.

And he did it against an opponent he had lost to at last weekend’s Ukiah tournament.

That put the Panthers up by two points heading into the last match of the day and Na-Tess Marquez then completed the comeback for the team with a pin at 144.

“He sealed the deal for us,” Moorehead said.

Team leaders Brandon Hilligeist and Damarius Thompson each also pinned their opponents at 128 and 134, respectively, while Isaiah Wolfe also pinned his opponent at 175 despite battling a knee injury.

One of the most courageous performances of the day came from McKinleyville freshman Cael Johnson, who has been battling sickness all week but took the mat for his team and pinned his opponent at 106 to score some valuable points.

“It was pretty exciting for the kids,” Moorehead said. “They’ve had a good season and it’s pretty rewarding to end it this way.”

The Warriors were equally impressive on the way to their second straight D-2 title.

They also competed at Ukiah and were seeded No. 2 in their bracket behind No. 1 Windsor.

Submitted photo – The Del Norte Warriors celebrate their NCS dual championship on Saturday.

After opening the day with a 78-3 win over San Marin, Del Norte won a semifinal match against No. 3 Casa Grande 53-21 to advance to a sixth consecutive NCS dual championship final.

Like with the Panthers, the final came down to the last match of the day, when Remington Escobedo got the win after his opponent was disqualified for an illegal slam.

“There wasn’t any question about the call,” said Schaad, who believes Escobedo would have gotten the win regardless had the match kept going.

Escobedo was one of six Warriors who went undefeated on the day, along with Chulhs Bates, Curtis Bartley, Colton Schaad, Davian Johnson and Braydan Johnson.

“It was a highly competitive day,” Clinton Schaad said. “We looked good. The boys wrestled well.”

One of the key wins for the Warriors in the final came in the heavyweight matchup, with Yatish Patel pining his opponent to give his team some valuable points.

“That was a big win for us,” the coach said.

For many of the Del Norte wrestlers, this was their second NCS dual championship victory.

“Of course, they were excited,” Clinton Schaad said. “We set some goals this year and one of them was to repeat as dual champions, which we did.

“It was a really good day. The kids were super excited. We had a lot of good matches.”

Both Del Norte and McKinleyville will now turn their attention to next week’s H-DNL championships, which will be held at Arcata High School, before the NCS championships the following weekend.