By Ray Hamill — It’s been a busy start to the new season for the H-DNL boys soccer teams with several games in quick succession.
Last week, the defending league champion Fortuna Huskies played seven games in seven days, and they’re not alone.
Eureka, Del Norte and Arcata also has been busy, as have the McKinleyville Panthers, who are in the midst of an eight-game run in a week and a half leading up to next week’s league openers.
But it’s also been a successful start to the new season for some of the HDN teams, including the Huskies, who won all seven of their games last week, including going 3-0 at the annual early-season McKinleyville tournament.
“I think we played with a lot of heart and we worked through a lot of injuries,” said Holmes, whose team defeated Eureka on a penalty shootout in Saturday’s tournament decider after tying 1-1 in regulation. “And I’m super happy with that.”
The Huskies open the H-DNL at South Fork next Wednesday as they look to repeat as champs and further establish themselves as the team to beat.
Juniors Kaden Lodes and Oliver Cortes are this year’s team captains and have been setting the tone for their teammates, while Isreal Hernandez and Brandon Cruz each also are impressing early.
Cruz, who plays center back, was particularly impressive at the weekend tournament.
“He had a great weekend and he really kept us in the (championship game),” Holmes said.
The Eureka Loggers also impressed in the early-season tournament and look well positioned to potentially end a near 20-year wait for a league championship under second-year head coach Tommy Learmouth.
The Loggers opened tournament play with a 7-1 win over St. Bernard’s, and they followed that with a 5-0 win over McKinleyville.
Isaiah Herbst was on fire in the tourney opener and netted five goals in the win, with teammates Callen Watkins and Sergio Calderon also scoring.
D’Alessandro Medina assisted on four of Eureka’s goals.
Herbst added a hat trick in the win over McKinleyvile, while Medina and Angel Martinez each added a goal, with Medina also assisting on two goals.
Calderon scored Eureka’s only goal in the championship game, with Medina assisting on the strike.
“Penalties is an abrupt and tough way to lose a game at the end of a very hard weekend, but I appreciate the boys,” Learmouth said. “It shows that we’ve bought into the idea of team first, which I really appreciate, and we continue to play well.”
The Arcata Tigers, meanwhile, will also like their chances of competing for this year’s league title after a good showing at the weekend tournament.
The Arcata boys opened with a 1-0 loss to Fortuna, but would respond with back-to-back victories over Fort Bragg (3-0) and Upper Lake (8-1) to go to 3-2-1 on the young season.
According to Arcata head coach John Davidson, this year’s roster features a deep bench, which will give the coaches some different options when it comes to making in-game adjustments.
The Tigers also have five talented freshmen on the roster, which bodes well for the future.
“I’m really grateful to go to work with these guys every day,” Davidson said. “It seems like a lot of these guys want to play at the next level.
This year’s team will be led by three senior team captains — Cruz Aguilar, Lars Gerdes and Jonah Morgan — each of whom is expected to play a key role in the coming months, as the Tigers look to reclaim the league title they last won in 2022.
“They’re phenomenal captains,” Davidson said. “All three of them are next-level players and very high caliber on and off the field. I’m really grateful to be able to work with them. They’re good kids and have all been a part of the program for four years.”
Davidson added that he is trying to piece together a schedule of JV games against other league teams and is hoping to see the H-DNL reestablish the JV league in the near future.
“It’s time the league makes it official,” he said. “We need an official JV schedule, we need to have real refs and we need to make this a real league. The kids deserve it.”
At the varsity level, Davidson is expecting a tight race for this year’s league championship, as it has been for the past few seasons.
“Based on the results (so far) it looks like another year of parity,” he said. “We’re trying to focus on the present and not get distracted by the outcome. We want to approach every game as an opportunity to win league and just staying in the moment and focusing on the process.
“It’s very competitive, I think it’s going to be very tight.”
The McKinleyville Panthers, meanwhile, feature a new-look program this fall.
Head coach Brady Burtchett has taken over the team from longtime head coach Ryne Deppe, and he has just four returning starters from a 2024 team that reached the North Coast Section semifinals and went further in the playoffs than any other local team.
“It’s going to take a little while to get going,” said Burtchett, who coached the McKinleyville girls team last year. “We have a very young team right now.”
Becker Rine, August Gonzalez, Lucas Jones and Gaelen Creighton are the four returning players, all of whom will be expected to provide some necessary team leadership for their younger teammates as the Panthers adjust to the new challenge.
“We have potential, we just need to put together a full game out there,” said Burtchett, whose team is 1-4 going into a game against St. Bernard’s on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ll get there, we’re just not there quite yet.
“It’s a young team with a lot of talent. There’s just a lot of mistakes that come with a young team.”
Humboldt Sports also reached out to the Del Norte coach for some feedback on the Warriors’ early season but he did not immediately respond.
