Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

The last team to qualify for this year’s Charles Lakin Tournament has advanced to Thursday’s semifinal round.

After placing fourth in the Big 5, the Eureka Loggers thought their hopes of a Lakin tournament championship was gone, but when the Del Norte Warriors informed the league they would not be able to participate in this week’s HDN postseason tournament because of scheduling conflict with a required school activity, the Eureka girls took their place and found themselves included at the last minute.

On Tuesday, they took full advantage of that, getting the better of Hoopa 6-4 in their opening tournament game at the Arcata Sports Complex to move on to the semifinals.

In the other tournament opening round game on Tuesday, the Fortuna Huskies took care of business against neighbor and rival Ferndale, winning 13-3 to also advance to the semifinals.

Thursday’s semifinals will see Eureka play Big 5 champion McKinleyville and Fortuna face off against South Fork.

The Loggers had to battle against Hoopa, overcoming a 2-0 deficit with six late runs.

Pitcher Mackenzie Wolff led the way for the Big 5 school with a commanding performance in the circle.

Wolff struck out 13 batters in a complete-game performance, allowing just three earned runs, three hits and four walks.

Violla Kingsang, Megan Secor and Jaycee Childress led the way at the plate for Eureka and finished with a pair of base hits each.

Secor finished 2-for-2 with two walks and two runs, while Kingsang was 2-for-4 with a double and a run, and Childress was 2-for-4 with a double, an RBI and a run.

Ella Moxon (1-for-3 with a stolen base), Lola Distefano (1-for-4 with a double and two RBIs), Macy Secor (1-for-3 with a double, an RBI, a run and a sac fly) and Bailey Brown (1-for-3 with a run) each also had a base hit in the win.

With the win, the Eureka girls improved to 10-12 on the season.

No stats were immediately available for Hoopa, which closed out the H-DNL season 17-8, but we’ll have more on the Warriors on Wednesday.

The Warriors will now turn their attention to next week’s North Coast section playoffs, with the brackets and seeds set to be announced on Sunday.