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It was another disappointing night for the Hoopa Warriors on Friday as they fell 34-7 to Arcata.

The victory for the Tigers keeps them in contention for a share of this year’s Little 4 championship, but they’ll have to beat a 9-0 Ferndale team in their final conference game next week, which will be no easy task.

Arcata improved to 4-1 in the L4 and 5-4 overall.

The Warriors, meanwhile, have now lost six of their last seven games and dropped to 2-7 overall and 1-4 in the Little 4.

Friday’s performance featured a lot of penalties as the game got away from the host Warriors in the second half, just three weeks after they pushed Arcata all the way in a one-point loss on the coast.

“It was a good fight for the first half,” said Hoopa head coach Curtis Kane, who added “the Arcata defense stepped up pretty good.”

Donald Hostler scored the only touchdown of the night for Hoopa in the opening half, but Arcata’s Luke Lemke would break free for a long TD run in the second quarter to give his team a lead it would not relinquish.

The Tigers led 20-7 at halftime.

Among the bright spots for the Warriors was the running of Hostler and Tyler Lewis.

“They were running the ball hard, and it was no easy task against Arcata’s interior defensive line,” Kane said. “But Tyler and Donald never shied away from it.”

Ethan Obie also impressed for Hoopa on defense, while kicker Daniel Peralta made his first PAT of the season with Brian Richards holding.

Peralta and Richards have switched back and forth taking kicks this season and have “been working day and night” trying to improve that aspect of their game, according to the coach, something that paid off on Friday.

Uriah Cheng is another Hoopa player who has been rising to the challenge as the season winds down.

“He kept running the ball hard (last week) and tonight was the same thing,” Kane said after Friday’s loss. “He just gives it his all every single week.”

Cheng got some good news this week, when he and fellow Hoopa senior Allen Kane received an invitation to play at this year’s Indigenous Bowl game in Minnesota.

The Warriors will close out the Little 4 at home against McKinleyville next week and will honor their 16 seniors before kickoff.

And Curtis Kane is hoping for a big performance from those seniors.

“We’ve got to work hard on senior night,” the coach said. “I’m going to rely on all my seniors to just step up and play their hearts out in front of their fans.”

In JV action on Friday night, the Warriors won 44-0, improving to 2-3 in the Little 4 and 4-5 overall.

The young Tigers dropped to 0-5 and 0-9.