Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Del Norte seniors
By Ray Hamill — The Del Norte Warriors will kickstart a busy month on the wrestling mats at the North Coast Section team dual meet championships on Saturday.
And the most dominating program in the H-DNL will be hoping to make it three straight Division-2 Redwood Empire titles when they take the mats at Lower lake High School.
It’s been another good year for the 2025 Humboldt Sports High School Team of the Year, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
On Wednesday, they closed out the H-DNL regular season with a dominating dual meet win over Fortuna in Crescent City.
The Warriors, who won 59-16, enjoyed several big performances, including wins for Lucas Lopez, Chulhs Bates, Thunder Lewis, Wyatt Sharp, Remington Escobedo, Wyatt Lewis, Blake Owen, and Robert Reyes-Villegas, all by pin.
Eddie Norris, Dane Brown and Davion Johnson each also won their matches by decision.
“Overall, we wrestled really well,” head coach Clinton Schaad said. “We executed properly, It was very controlled, very purpose driven.”
Before the match, the Warriors celebrated their 13 seniors, including the lone senior on the girls team, Karlye Dodson.
The Del Norte girls also faced off against Fortuna in a league dual meet, but lost 30-24.
Saturday’s NCS dual meet championships will kickstart a very busy month for the local teams.
Next weekend, McKinleyville will host the 2026 league championships at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Lumberjack Arena, always one of the most anticipated tournaments on the local wrestling calendar.
The first of two NCS postseason tournaments will take place the following weekend.
This year’s Section playoffs will be split into two rounds, a divisional tournament and a masters tournament on back-to-back weekends.
The top grapplers from the Masters tournament will advance to the state championships five weeks from now.
“It’s going to get a lot tougher from here on,” Schaad said.
The Warriors, who are looking to secure an eighth straight boys league championship this year, traveled with 17 wrestlers for Saturday’s dual meet, and Schaad is hoping the tournament can kickstart a successful month for his team.
“We’ll do our best, whatever their best is,” the head coach said of his grapplers, who traveled down to Lake County on Friday. “As long as we go and compete, that’s what it’s all about.
“It’s all about executing properly.”
Wednesday’s Senior Night attracted a big crowd to Charles Thunen Gymnasium.
But that’s become par for the course for the seven-time defending league champs.
“We’ve been getting some big crowds, that’s kind of the standard for us the past few years,” Schaad said. “The fans really come out and the community supports our wrestling program.”
