Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Sawyer Fry

By Ray Hamill — A pair of juniors and a group of “Road Warriors” take center stage this week after a big few days for all of them.

In the midst of another exciting week of Dick Niclai basketball, two players stood tall in leading their teams to some big wins, and that makes them our choice for athletes of the week.

Del Norte’s Sawyer Fry enjoyed an outstanding week for a busy Warriors boys team, which traveled for four elimination games in five days.

They won three of those games on the way to reaching Tuesday’s semifinal round, before eventually falling to St. Bernard’s on a buzzer-beater.

Fry was front and center in the late-season surge, scoring in double digits in all four games and playing the best basketball of his young career.

After finishing with a career-high 33 points at Fortuna on Friday night, Fry added 22 points in a tournament play-in game at Eureka on Saturday night, and contributed 33 more points in the Warriors’ two Niclai games at Arcata and against Del Norte on Monday and Tuesday nights.

And he was lights out from behind the arc during the impressive run, nailing an impressive 23 3-pointers over those four games.

But he wasn’t the only local standout this week.

Eureka junior Tiarah Maualuga has also been playing the best basketball of her young career recently, helping to lead the Loggers to a seven-game winning streak, including tournament wins this week over Del Norte and St. Bernard’s.

Mauluaga has been one of the best players in the H-DNL over the past two seasons, but is really thriving late in this season and has her team well positioned to win a fifth Niclai tournament in six years on Friday night.

She helped lead the Loggers to a comfortable win over Del Norte in Monday’s opening-round, and followed that with what her head coach Cliff Napoleon described as a “monster night” in Thursday’s semifinal thrilling victory over St. Bernard’s at College of the Redwoods.

Maualuga and her teammates will play Big 5 rival Arcata in Friday night’s championship game at Lumberjack Arena.

Tip off is set for 6 p.m.

Rounding out our weekly awards this week is the Del Norte boys basketball team, our team of the week.

The Warriors are the feel good story of this year’s tournament, despite not making the championship game.

They certainly came close.

Head coach Cris Rice’s team came storming back from a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit to tie the game with just 15 seconds remaining, before ultimately losing on a Tyler Hinrichs’ buzzer-beater for St. Bernard’s.

It was a remarkable run for the Warriors, who essentially played five straight elimination games, including victories in two must-have Big 5 games to close out the regular season, a play-in win at Eureka and a first-round win at Arcata, before finally running out of gas in Tuesday’s semifinal round.

The most impressive thing about this team, which really found its groove late in the year, is the fact that there is only one senior on the roster, Kanyon Starkey.

It’s also a team that features several players capable of going off on any given night, and a team that depending on its North Coast Section bracket and seed could make another deep playoff run.

In addition to Sawyer, the Warriors also features sophomore Ty Blue, who appears to grow in stature each week and looks like a future Big 5 MVP, while the sharpshooting Damian Escalera is also enjoying a big campaign and could explode for 20-plus points on any given night.

The electric Justin Cushman and Marcus Parras also are enjoying big seasons for the team.

With a record of 19-10, the Warriors will be included in this weekend’s NCS playoff field, the only question is what bracket they will feature in.

And if they continue to play the way they have been recently they will be a challenge for any team they face next week and perhaps beyond.