Wildcats look to make more history in NorCal bowl game

By barstoolfanatics on December 4, 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — H-DNL teams have a strong recent tradition in the state football playoffs and Ferndale Wildcat fans will be hoping that continues this weekend when their team plays in a NorCal Regional bowl game at the Redwood Bowl.

At stake is a place in next week’s 4-AA state championship game, which will take place in Southern California.

Of the seven previous H-DNL teams to qualify for the state playoffs in the past decade, six advanced to a state final and five of them took home a state championship.

So history is on the Wildcats’ side, and it is so in more ways than one.

The list of H-DNL state championship teams includes the Ferndale Wildcats in 2023, and many of the players from that season are still with the team and hoping to make some additional history this month by becoming the first-ever local players to play in two state finals during their brief high school careers.

The Cats are also hoping to become just the second-ever H-DNL program to win two state titles in any sport, following the St. Bernard’s Crusaders, who won state championships in football in 2015 and 2019.

If the Cats win on Friday, it will be the third straight year an H-DNL team has qualified for a state championship bowl game.

Standing in their way are the Sutter Huskies, who are 12-1 on the season after a 42-27 win over Casa Roble in last weekend’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division-5 championship game.

The Cats also took care of business in their North Coast Section final a week ago, traveling to Rohnert Park to play two-time defending state champion St. Vincent de Paul and handing the Mustangs their first playoff loss since 2022 by a score of 26-14.

With that win, the high-flying Cats improved to 13-0 on the season, extending one of the most impressive campaigns we’ve ever seen here on the North Coast.

And they have succeeded with a physical defense, big-play and fundamentally sound special teams, and an offense that features a relentless ground attack and an opportunistic aerial game.

The Wildcats did not allow a single point until their ninth game of the year, including putting up over 100 points combined in back-to-back shutout victories over Fortuna and Eureka, something we certainly don’t see every season.

But that’s not the only reason this year’s team has succeeded in the manner it has.

What impresses most people who watch them up close is the size and physicality of the Wildcats, but it’s the players’ mental approach to games that really sets them apart.

This is a team that has tremendous leadership, something which fuels their incredible success, with the seniors getting the tone at practice and during games and the coaches invariably always having the players well prepared and focused on the task at hand and never allowing any complacency to set in.

This year’s Ferndale team truly is one for the ages and is respectful on the field of play.

They also have plenty of big-game experience, with many of the players having reached three straight NCS finals and advancing to the CIF playoffs twice.

Six of the Ferndale players — including three-year team captains Prescott Langer, Tanner Pidgeon and Ethan Weitzel, a remarkable statistic on its own — will be playing in their third state playoff game on Friday night.

Those six seniors also include Rolland McClurg, Tristen Titus and Jacob Kurwitz, all of whom have also played pivotal roles in the program’s recent unparalleled success.

The Huskies, meanwhile, will be making their eighth appearance in the state playoffs in the past 14 years, but they have lost all seven previous NorCal Regional bowl games in that span, most recently in 2021.

Interestingly, both Ferndale and Sutter are coached by former Humboldt State players (now Cal Poly Humboldt), who graced the Redwood Bowl before the local university made the shameful and extremely unpopular decision to cut the program in 2018.

Sutter head coach Ryan Reynolds is a North Coast native, having graduated from McKinleyville High School in 1990 before going on to play for the Jacks.