File photo

By Ray Hamill — The opening night of any new football season is often unpredictable, but rarely as bizarre as this.

Three H-DNL teams were scheduled to play on Friday, but only one managed to complete its game.

Up in Crescent City, a county-wide power outage ended the game between Del Norte and Hoopa just three plays in and that game will now be completed on Saturday evening at McKinleyville High School.

Elsewhere on opening night, it was a disappointing start to the new season for the Fortuna Huskies, who fell 28-18 at St. Helena after losing starting quarterback Will Shaw to injury early in the second quarter.

Because of Friday’s postponed game, Saturday afternoon will be very busy one for the H-DNL teams, with a triple-header of varsity games now taking place at McKinleyville.

Earlier in the week, the Panthers’ scheduled opener against Fort Bragg was pushed back to Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. because of transportation issues for the Timberwolves.

Del Norte and Hoopa will now play their game after that, resuming at 5 p.m.

Closing out the night, Arcata and Eureka will face off at Mack High in their season openers at 7:30 p.m.

The Tigers, who do not have a home field of their own, regularly play their home games at McKinleyville.

The McKinleyville and Fort Bragg JVs will also play at Mack on Saturday, with kickoff set for 11:30 a.m.

The Arcata and Eureka JVs were originally scheduled to also play at Mack on Saturday evening before the schools’ varsity game, but the Tigers forfeited the game before Friday night’s events.

Those two teams, however, will still scrimmage against each other on the McKinleyville practice field.

File photo – The Del Norte Warriors

At St. Helena, it was an entertaining albeit disappointing start to the new season for the Huskies in a back-and-forth game.

The dynamic running back tandem of Kavi Bolden and Mako Limon lived up to their billing as two of the best at their position in the H-DNL, combining for more than 200 yards rushing, but it wasn’t enough for the Huskies.

St. Helena quarterback Jhony Covarrubias ran in for three touchdowns and the Saints never trailed.

But the game remained in the balance until the final few minutes.

With his team trailing 6-0, Limon opened the scoring for the visitors late in the first quarter, finding the end zone on a 37-yard TD run to tie the game at 6-6.

But a physical Saints team would score again before halftime and added a two-point conversion to lead 14-6 at the break.

Bolden, who made several big plays on both sides of the ball, scored his first touchdown of the season on Fortuna’s first possession of the third quarter, finding the end zone on a 42-yard run.

But a missed two-point attempt left the Huskies trailing 14-12.

The hosts would add to the advantage on their next possession and stretched the gap to 10 after a successful two-point conversion.

Limon, who finished the night with 102 yards rushing, added a second TD on a 12-yard run in the final minute of the quarter, but another failed two-point try left the visitors four points adrift heading into the final quarter.

Despite the deficit they had their chances to pull out a comeback win.

A pair of late takeaways by Bolden, one on an interception in the end zone and the second on a fumble recovery, gave the Huskies a couple of fourth-quarter opportunities, but the St. Helena defense held firm and sealed the win with a pair of late takeaways.

Bolden finished the night with 136 yards rushing.

The Huskies will have a bye next week, before traveling to play Ukiah in two weeks.

In JV action on Friday night, Del Norte defeated Hoopa 14-12.