Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The McKinleyville players celebrate their NCS win on Wednesday night.

By Ray Hamill — Playing against a school five times their size, the McKinleyville Panthers rose to the challenge with a gutsy and composed performance in their North Coast Section playoff opener on Wednesday night.

The Panthers, a Division-4 sized school, welcomed Heritage, a Division-1 sized school, to McKinleyville and prevailed 49-45 in a hard-fought and close matchup that neither team was able to ever really take control of.

The win was the fourth in five playoff games for the H-DNL girls teams over the past two days

Following victories for Eureka and Fortuna on Tuesday night, the McKinleyville and Hoopa girls won their section openers on Wednesday.

The Warriors, who are seeded No. 6 in the Division-4 bracket, welcomed No. 12 Tamalpais to Hoopa Valley and won 61-49.

Sophomore Wau’Kel Blake led the way for the Hoopa girls and scored 27 points in the win.

The Warriors will now advance to play at No. 3 Sonoma Academy on Saturday night at 7 p.m. in the quarterfinals.

The No. 5 Panthers, meanwhile, will play their Division-2 quarterfinal at No. 4 Moreau Catholic, also on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

And judging by the fight they displayed in Wednesday’s win, they will be ready to go and give it their all once again.

“I think some people counted us out against a quality Division-1 school, but we showed up and came to play tonight,” McKinleyville head coach Jacob Cheek said.

They certainly did, and going up against a school of more than 2600 students they didn’t blink and turned in one of their most complete performances of the season with big contributions from several players.

In particular, the Panthers enjoyed big performances by seniors Gabby Watson and Tatum Fisher, each of whom looked like they did not want their high school careers to end just yet, as well as outstanding freshman Lily Battilocchi, who has grown in leaps and bounds as a player this season and is closing out her debut varsity campaign with a bang.

Both teams looked up for the challenge early in the game, with four lead changes in the opening quarter.

The visitors carried a slender two-point advantage into the second quarter (15-13) and would stretch the lead to as many as seven late in the period, which was the biggest gap between the two schools all night.

Battilocchi, who finished with 10 points and scored in all four quarters, made two huge baskets midway through the second quarter to help keep her team in the game just when it appeared as if the Patriots were starting to take control.

The always dangerous McKinleyville duo of Watson and Fisher each also made several key baskets in the opening two quarters and combined for seven unanswered points to close out the half and send both teams into the break tied 24-24.

If there was little to separate the two teams in the opening half, there was even less so in the second half and Heritage held the narrowest of leads (38-37) going into the fourth.

But the Panthers would enjoy the better of exchanges in the final period at both ends of the court, outscoring the visitors 12-7 down the stretch and holding them to just three baskets for the quarter.

Heritage did not score in the final 2:23 of the game as the McKinleyville girls held their nerve late in what was a very entertaining game.

“We played with such composure tonight and limited our turnovers down the stretch,” Cheek said. “The execution and the attention to detail was amazing by our team tonight.”

And all of the players played a part in that.

“All eight players contributed positively tonight,” Cheek added.

Watson scored a team-high 19 points and helped set the tone with the Panthers’ first eight points of the game.

Fisher added 17 points and teammate Grace Pimentel chipped in three big second-half points.