Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — Bring on the Huskies!

While the Ferndale Wildcats have grabbed most of the headlines and some national attention this fall as they continue to inch closer to a perfect season of not allowing any points, the St. Bernard’s Crusaders are chasing a little bit of history of their own.

On Saturday night, they faced off against the Eureka Loggers at the Redwood Bowl and won 28-0.

With the shutout victory, which was their second straight and fourth of the season, the Crusaders improved to 8-0.

They are also now 4-0 in conference and top of the standings as they look to secure a first-ever Big 4 outright championship.

They will now turn their attention to a huge matchup next week at Fortuna, the only school that can now stop them from claiming the conference championship outright.

On Saturday, they continued to look like the best team in the Big 4.

The showdown was sloppy early on, with way too many penalties and neither team able to find much of a rhythm.

But the Crusaders would overcome the early mistakes and opened up a 21-0 lead before halftime, with their defensive line setting the tone, as usual.

The Crusaders have dominated most of their opponents with a balanced lineup that includes a good running game, a quality aerial attack and some outstanding defense and special teams.

But no unit on the team has been more effective than the defensive line, and that continued to be the case at the Redwood Bowl on Saturday.

A line that includes tackles Josh Tinkham and Teqkauri Achane, alongside defensive ends Kohlton Hall and Jahseree Bailey, overwhelmed the Loggers for the second time this season, following a 43-6 win over their crosstown rivals three weeks ago.

And they ensured there would be no way back for the Loggers in the second half.

Kuron Devlin opened the scoring with 4:44 remaining in the first quarter, breaking free for a 54-yard touchdown run.

Tyler Hinrichs’ PAT put the visitors up 7-0.

The Loggers, who have suffered more injuries than any other local team this fall and most of them to key starters, were unable to get much going on offense and the Crusaders would add to their tally early in the second quarter on a seven-yard TD run by quarterback Trenten Hagler.

They stretched the advantage to three scores well before halftime on an inspirational play by Bailey, who found the end zone on a 28-yard TD run midway through the quarter, a score that every St. Bernard’s player seemed to love, judging by how the lineman was celebrated in the end zone and on the sidelines.

Hagler was involved in St. Bernard’s final TD of the night early in the second half, completing a 22-yard scoring pass to Hinrichs.

And that was more than enough for the visitors and their dominating defense, which held the beat-up Loggers out of the end zone the remainder of the way.

With the loss, the Loggers dropped to 1-7 on the season and 0-4 in the Big 4.