By Ray Hamill — It’s been a fun start to the school year in local high school sports with several teams impressing and some enjoying history-making campaigns.

We’ve already had several league champions crowned in varsity sports, a group that includes Ferndale girls soccer, St. Bernard’s volleyball, Del Norte girls golf and Eureka volleyball, with many more coming in the next few weeks.

And there’s been no lack of excitement or intrigue.

The quality of competition has been as good as ever, with fans showing up in big numbers for many of the sports, including some great atmospheres at some of the Big 5 volleyball games in particular.

We’re also seeing history being made in multiple sports, no where more so than at Ferndale High, as well as up in Crescent City.

All in all, the early-year sports teams are setting a high standard for the rest of the school year

But for my money, five stories have stood out above all others.

Here then, in ascending order, are the five most intriguing sports stories of the 2025/26 H-DNL sports year thus far.

5 — St. Bernard’s volleyball wins another Little 4 championship

Not too local many teams have dominated in their conference the way the Crusaders have on the volleyball courts over the past decade, and that continues to be the case this fall.

Remarkably, the Crusaders claimed a ninth straight conference title, according to MaxPreps records, eight of which they won outright.

And during that dominating run, the SB girls have lost just three conference games, with seven of their nine L4 titles coming with undefeated campaigns, including this season.

After dropping their first set in conference play at Ferndale, first-year head coach Sejay Sarti and the SB girls would go on to win 27 straight sets, clinching the league crown with two games to spare.

Submitted photo

4 — Del Norte girls’ historic season in golf

It’s been an historic fall for the Warriors.

Not only did senior Bria Larson clinch the individual league title with another dominating performance at Baywood Golf & Country Club on Monday, but the Del Norte girls also officially claimed a first-ever league title in the sport.

The Warriors’ dominance has been evident on two fronts.

As a team, Del Norte won six of the seven rounds of league competition, including five straight to close out, while individually they claimed the top two spots in the final league standings and three of the top six.

In addition to Larson’s 22-stroke season win, her teammate Jaylee Keeling tied for second and freshman Taylor Horner was sixth after picking up a golf club for the first time ever less than three months ago.

3 — The exciting race for the Big 5 volleyball championship

It was a very exciting race for this year’s league title, which went right down to the final set of the regular season.

Arcata and Del Norte have accounted for the past five conference titles between them, but Eureka joined the party this fall, with the three Big 5 rivals battling neck and next for the past several weeks.

Not only was it a close race for the title — all three teams were still in contention going into Tuesday night’s big showdown between Del Norte and Eureka in Crescent City — but the games between these three schools have all been outstanding theater played in front of large crowds and wonderful atmospheres.

Five of the six matchups between the frontrunners went the full five sets.

Al three conference contenders deserve a ton of credit for the effort and determination they have brought to the court this fall, in particular the champion Eureka girls.

2 — Cats the cream of the crop in girls soccer

The Ferndale girls have dominated on the soccer field for much of the fall, not just in the Little 4, but in the entire H-DNL.

Not only have they cruised to just their second-ever league title, but they have also gone unbeaten against the traditional powerhouse programs of the Big 4.

Under the guidance of coaches Bailey Davy and Brendan McDonald, the Cats have not lost a game since their season-opener and have pieced together a very impressive 16-game unbeaten streak, including victories in 15 of those games.

To put it in perspective, consider these two facts.

Two years ago, the Cats were 0-3-1 against the Big 4 schools and were outscored 17-0, but this year they are 3-0-1 against the same schools, outscoring them 12-3.

And secondly, last year, the Cats played most of their season with less than a full team, fielding as few as nine players for a large stretch of the campaign.

This year, however, the players’ collective perseverance has paid off big time and they’ve captured the imagination of the Ferndale sports community and the respect of the entire league.

1 — Ferndale football’s pursuit of a truly perfect season

It’s one thing to win all of your games in a single season, it’s something else entirely when you’re threatening to win all of them by not allowing a single point.

And while the Wildcats are still three games from achieving that, through seven games they have outscored their opponents by an incredible 450-0, including shutout victories over all three of the teams they will face over the next three weekends (Hoopa, McKinleyville and Arcata).

Ferndale is the smallest school in the entire North Coast Section to field an 11-player program, but head coach Clint McClurg and his staff have their team playing at an extremely high level and routing schools eight times their size, with their closest game of the year coming against Fortuna, a game in which they scored (only) 49 points.

Bigger challenges await this group of players when they get to the postseason, but for now no other team in the H-DNL has scaled the heights the Cats have so far this year, and that makes them the best story of local high school fall sports.