By Ray Hamill — There’s always something special about rivalry games.

On Wednesday night, in front of a packed and loud Arcata High gymnasium, the host Tigers continued their late-season surge by getting the better of their biggest rivals, beating McKinleyville 58-47.

The victory not only secured a No. 2 seed and an opening-round home game for next week’s Dick Niclai tournament, but it also prevented their biggest rivals and Big 5 champs from closing out conference play with a perfect record.

Also in the Big 5 on Wednesday night, the Loggers kept their Niclai tournament hopes alive with a 62-56 win over Fortuna at Eureka High.

With their win, the Eureka boys moved into a tie with Del Norte for third in the standings, and that sets up a huge final night of conference play on Friday night, when the Loggers travel to Arcata and Del Norte plays at Fortuna.

The third-placed team in the Big 5 will advance to the Niclai tournament.

If both schools tie for third, a play-in game will be held on Saturday.

The atmosphere at Arcata on Wednesday night was intense once again, as it always is when these two neighboring schools and rivals face off.

“Mack’s a very good team, but it was really important for us to make sure they didn’t go undefeated (in the Big 5),” Arcata head coach Kellen Maynard said.

Job done.

But it wasn’t easy.

Senior standout Luke Lemke played sparingly in the opening half after picking up three fouls in the first four minutes, but in his absence his teammates made sure there would be no letdown.

Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Action from the game at Arcata High.

“Our second unit guys, our glue guys, they all stepped up and played some of the best basketball we’ve played in the first half,” Maynard said. “All my guys stepped up. Everybody that went in the game stepped up. It was a complete and total team effort tonight.”

The loss was obviously a disappointing one for the Panthers, who came into the game having won eight of their last nine games dating back to early January.

“Gotta give credit to Kellen and his guys,” McKinleyville head coach Chris Davis said. “They straight up outplayed us tonight, physically and mentally.”

The loss is the first in the Big 5 for the Panthers, who closed out conference play 7-1 and dropped to 17-8 on the season.

As conference champs, however, McKinleyville will still go into next week’s Dick Niclai tournament as a top seed and will have a first-round bye, before opening tournament play against either Hoopa, South Fork or Ferndale in Tuesday night’s semifinals at College of the Redwoods.

“Hopefully this is a good wake-up call before Niclai next week,” Davis added.

The Tigers, meanwhile, will carry plenty of momentum into next week’s tournament and have been one of the most impressive H-DNL teams in recent weeks, with four straight wins in the Big 5.

If it wasn’t for a buzzer-beating loss at Del Norte in their conference opener, the Tigers would be playing for a share of the Big 5 title against Eureka on Friday night.

Wednesday’s performance was also a nice response for a team that was coming off a 79-54 loss to St. Bernard’s in non-conference action over the weekend.

“We knew the league title wasn’t on the line tonight, but I’m proud of my guys for not worrying about that stuff,” Maynard said.

“Our whole mentality right now is about buying in and getting better each week and giving ourselves an opportunity to make the playoffs and getting a favorable seed. I’m super proud of their effort the last couple of weeks. I’m super proud of just their mentality.”

Lemke, who has been playing at an MVP level all season, finished with a game-high 15 points despite missing much of the first half, with all of his points coming in the second half.

He had back-to-back dunks on back-to-back steals midway through the fourth quarter to put the Tigers up by 11 and all but end the game.

Check out highlights of those plays above …

Remey Winkler and Jack Luh each added 11 points in the win, while teammate Elias Gomez finished with nine points, as Arcata improved to 5-2 in the Big 5 and 10-14 on the season.

Fore McKinleyville, Henry Turner and Neil Moon both finished with a team-high 13 points, while teammate Jeremiah Smith added eight points.

But the Arcata defense caused the visitors problems for much of the night.

“We changed our defensive philosophy tonight to give Mack a different look,” Maynard said when asked what he thought was the difference in the game. “And I was real proud of our guys for executing our game plan. I thought we did a really good job of taking Mack out of their actions.

“And I thought all the guys that played really bought in.”

At Eureka, meanwhile, the Loggers won a tough matchup against the Huskies.

Rawland Bones led Fortuna with a team-high 16 points, while teammate Kye Hawthorne also impressed and added 12 points.

After a slow start, the Huskies battled back to make a game of it.

“Our rally in the fourth fell short,” said Fortuna head coach Norm Sotomayor, who added “I loved our effort.”

Tanner Franklin added 11 points in the loss, but the Huskies managed just 9 of 20 feee throws.

And as Sotomayor said, that sort of performance from the free-throw line “in that kind of a game is not going to get it done.”

With the loss, the Huskies dropped to 0-7 in the Big 5 and 7-18 overall.

No stats were immediately available for the Loggers, who improved to 3-4 in the Big 5 and 14-11 overall.