Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Ferndale’s Chris Ardrey is the 2024/25 Humboldt Sports Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.

By Ray Hamill — It was a winter to remember for a pair of Little 4 teams that enjoyed tremendous postseason success.

The St. Bernard’s boys and Ferndale girls basketball teams saved their best for last and both programs won North Coast Section titles.

And they did so in large part thanks to some excellent coaching.

And with that in mind, Ferndale’s Chris Ardrey and St. Bernard’s Issac Gildea are this year’s Humboldt Sports girls and boys basketball coaches of the year.

Ardrey took over the Wildcats program last season and has had an immediate impact.

After leading the team to a 13-8 record a year ago, Ardrey and the Ferndale girls finished 17-10 this winter.

They tied for second in the Little 4, but it was the team’s postseason performances that really defined their season.

A young Cats team pushed Big 5 champion Arcata all the way in their Dick Niclai semifinal and then went on to claim three straight playoff victories in the NCS Division-6 tournament and took home a second section crown in four seasons.

They also qualified for the state playoffs, barely dropping their NorCal opener in overtime while missing one of their best players and main defensive threat, Tinnley Pidgeon.

Ardrey played a pivotal role in that success and the program appears to be in good hands moving forward.

Likewise with the St. Bernard’s boys.

In his four years in charge of the program, Gildea has enjoyed unprecedented success for an H-DNL boys team.

The former McKinleyville High player has quickly established himself as one of the top high school coaches in the area and has now won two NCS and two NorCal titles.

This year’s team made history by becoming the first-ever league program to win a conference championship, an NCS title and a NorCal crown all in the season.

Submitted photo

Perhaps most impressive this season was how this group of SB players came together as quick as they did, enjoying tremendous success with a junior-heavy roster.

That’s a testament to the job Gildea and his assistants — whom the head coach is always quick to acknowledge — have done together.

Congratulations to Ardrey and Gildea for the jobs they did with their respective teams this past season and for being named Humboldt Sports basketball coaches of the year.

And a big shoutout to Arcata’s Charlie Espinoza and Kellen Maynard, St. Bernard’s Matt Tomlin and McKinleyville’s Chris Davis, all of whom also received plenty of consideration for the awards.