Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Arcata players celebrate their NCS championship on Friday evening.

By Ray Hamill — Two days after their memorable North Coast Section championship win, the Arcata Tigers received a No. 7 seed for this coming week’s NorCal playoffs.

Arcata was placed in the Division-4 bracket — out of five divisions — and will open on the road on Tuesday.

The Tigers will play at No. 2 West Valley.

The Eagles are 22-4 on the season, including a 10-0 mark in conference play.

The Cottonwood high school clinched a Northern Section championship with a 10-0 win over Lassen on May 24 and will be coming off a 10-day break when they host the Tigers.

But the Eagles will carry plenty of momentum into the NorCal showdown, having won 20 of their last 21 games.

So too, however, will the Tigers, who are the last remaining H-DNL team in this year’s playoffs.

Arcata has won this postseason with some outstanding pitching, with seniors Ben Lukens and Anthony Ebert and junior Tanner Kees dominating on the mound in all four playoff games so far.

The dynamic trio has combined to give up six hits in those four games, with five of them coming in one game against St. Bernard’s in the NCS semifinal.

They pitched no-hitters against Ygnacio Valley and Kennedy, the latter coming in Friday’s 1-0 championship win, with Lukens leading the way.

This will be the Tigers’ second appearance in the NorCal playoffs, which began in 2022.

Tuesday’s game is set for 5 p.m., and the winner will play either No. 3 Santa Clara or No. 6 Oakland Tech in the semifinals on Thursday.

If it’s the Tigers who advance, as the lower seed they will play their semifinal on the road.

In 2023, the Tigers defeated Chico 5-3 in their NorCal debut, before falling to Central Catholic 7-4 in the tournament semifinals.

All five NorCal brackets feature eight teams, with season-concluding championship games set for Saturday.

There are no state championships in baseball, just NorCal and SoCal tournaments.