Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com
By Ray Hamill — The Del Norte Warriors got a wake-up call on Friday night. Now we’ll see how they respond.
The Warriors traveled to Fortuna for their Big 4 opener and lost 31-14 in a game they were never really in.
It was, in the words of head coach Darren LaFazio, one of the worst games the team has played in his time with the program.
“It wasn’t good,” LaFazio said. “(Fortuna) coach (Mike) Benbow did a good job. My hats off to him. We came out flat and they just out-coached us and outplayed us.”
The Warriors offense was shut out for the opening three quarters and found themselves 24-0 down at that stage.
To their credit, the players continued to fight and they cut the deficit to just 10 with a little over four minutes remaining to give themselves a slim chance.
But in reality they had dug themselves too big a hole to climb out of with some poor pass coverage early in the game.
Fortuna quarterback Will Shaw threw for a career-high four touchdowns, including three in the opening half.
The question now for the Warriors is how will the players respond, and in particular how will the team captains and leaders respond.
It should be an interesting week on the practice field.
“We’ve got to get motivated. We’ve got to get better at practice this week,” LaFazio said.
The good news for the Del Norte players and fans is that they will finally get to play a home game when the Eureka Loggers travel to Crescent City next weekend on what will be the Warriors Homecoming.
They were scheduled to play their season opener against Hoopa in Crescent City, but that game lasted just three plays before a county-wide power outage halted proceedings and it was rescheduled for McKinleyville High the following evening.
Since then, the Warriors have traveled for games in McKinleyville, Ashland, Oakland and Fortuna.
But regardless of the travel, Friday night’s performance was both disappointing and surprising for a team that had won 18 of its previous 19 official conference games.
And the players and coaches will no doubt believe they are a better team than they showed on Friday night.
“I think we’ll be fine. I truly do,” LaFazio said.
