Submitted photo – The Fortuna girls have allowed just 29.5 points a game in their 13 wins this season.

By Ray Hamill — The first half of the local girls basketball season has been good for several H-DNL teams, including the Arcata Tigers and Fortuna Huskies.

The Arcata girls got their conference campaign off to a winning start with a comfortable 65-50 victory at Del Norte on Wednesday, just 24 hours after the Fortuna girls won their seventh straight game to go to 13-3.

And both teams feature in our weekly awards this week.

Our athletes of the week go to a pair of reigning conference MVPs — Arcata twin sisters Mae and Tae Wolford — while our team of the week honors go to the Fortuna girls, who will carry plenty of momentum into Friday night’s Big 5 opener against the Wolfords and Arcata.

The Huskies are not just winning, but they are doing so as a team, with multiple players stepping up for head coach Tom Chapman.

Freshman Kaleya Parkinson is enjoying a strong debut season with the program and leads the Huskies in scoring with 12.8 points a game, but it’s been the team defense that is really setting the tone.

Remarkably, in their 13 wins the Fortuna girls have held their opponents to one of their two lowest points totals of the year in more than half of those games (seven), including a season low for Ferndale in a 45-30 loss to Fortuna on Tuesday.

A suffocating Huskies defense also held Kelseyville and Hayfork to season lows in points, while Pierce, Forest Lake Christian, Ukiah, and West Valley were all held to their second lowest tally of the year when playing against the Huskies.

Three other teams who have faced Fortuna — Healdsburg, Corning and Westmoor — were all held to their third lowest points total of the year in those games.

Several players have contributed to the stingy defense, including a stellar group of senior standouts, and the Huskies are holding their opponents to just 34.4 points a game through their opening 16 games.

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Mae Wolford

That figure drops to just 29.5 in their 13 wins.

Whether the Huskies can keep that going against a quality field of Big 5 teams remains to be seen, but if they can they’ll be tough to stop in the race for this year’s conference title.

That defense has also lifted the Huskies to No. 18 overall out of 146 programs in the entire North Coast Section, making them the highest-ranked local team.

And that makes them a worthy choice for our team of the week.

The Wolford sisters have been every bit as impressive, and arguably even more so.

The reigning co-conference MVPs have picked up this year just where they left off last winter as they each look to cap brilliant high school careers with big senior seasons.

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Tae Wolford

Remarkably they are averaging almost identical points totals per game.

Tae leads the team with 13.8 points a game, while Mae is averaging 13.6 points.

But their contributions on the second highest-ranked local team in the North Coast Section — the Tigers are just two spots behind Fortuna at No. 20 — go well beyond that.

Mae is also averaging a team-best six rebounds a game, exactly one more than Tae, while the latter is averaging team highs in assists (2.9) and steals (3.4), showcasing her remarkable hustle and effort on every play.

It was no surprise to see both sisters named Big 5 MVPs a year ago, and with the way each is performing this winter, don’t be surprised to see a repeat of that again this year.