Submitted photo – The Ferndale players and coaches celebrate their tournament win on Saturday.

By Ray Hamill — It’s been a very good start to the new season for a pair of H-DNL soccer teams, both of whom feature in our weekly awards this week.

It’s also been a good start to the new football season for the St. Bernard’s Crusaders and for one of their players in particular, who also features in this week’s awards.

The Fortuna boys soccer team and Ferndale girls soccer team both traveled to Lake County over the weekend to compete in the Upper Lake tournament and each took home a championship pennant as they continue preparation for conference play.

And that earns both of them our co-team of the week honors.

The high-flying Huskies won both of their games in tournament play, defeating Fort Bragg 2-0 on Friday night and following that with a 3-1 win over Kelseyville in Saturday’s championship game.

With the two wins, the Fortuna boys improved to 9-0 on the young season.

The Ferndale girls have been almost as impressive.

On Friday night, the Wildcats got a big 1-0 win over conference rival St. Bernard’s in their tournament semifinal, before defeating Kelseyville 2-0 in Saturday’s final.

The impressive Ferndale girls have now posted five straight shutout victories.

Our athlete of the week, meanwhile, is St. Bernard’s Kohlton Hall, who has begun the new season in impressive fashion and was key to his team’s big win at McKinleyville on Friday night.

There senior defensive end dominated in the trenches all night.

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK 

Kohlton Hall

St. Bernard’s Football, Senior

In head coach Matt Tomlin’s words, Hall “had a monster game” and finished with five sacks and a forced fumble that resulted in a touchdown in Friday night’s win at McKinleyville.

The Crusaders won the game comfortably by a score of 37-0 they have now outscored their first two opponents 67-6.

Much of that early-season success has come about in large part because of the team’s success in the trenches, and Hall has played a key role from his defensive end position.

For more on Hall and his player of the game performance, see Crusaders continue to roll, cruise to comfortable win at Mack …

TEAMS OF THE WEEK

Fortuna Boys Soccer

Ferndale Girls Soccer

Head coaches Daniel Holmes and Bailey Davy have their teams playing at high level as they get set to kick off conference play.

Holmes is the longtime head coach of the Huskies, who look like the team to beat in this year’s H-DNL after a dominating start to the new season that has included tournament championships at Upper Lake this past weekend and at McKinleyville the previous week.

The Huskies have dominated the league for much of the past decade, including winning a league title last year.

And they look well equipped to continue that in the coming weeks.

Davy and the Ferndale girls, meanwhile, look like they could be the team to beat in what appears to be a competitive Little 4 girls conference.

The Ferndale coaches have their players well prepared this season and are firing on all cylinders and playing like a cohesive team at both ends of the field.

Saturdays’ win, which also avenged the team’s only defeat of the season so far, lifted the Wildcats to 5-1 on the season.

And just as impressive, their five wins have been shutouts.

For more on the Fortuna boys, see Huskies perfect going into league after tourney win at Upper Lake …

For more on the Wildcats, see Ferndale’s Gossi, Hagemann combine for championship goals …