The defending H-DNL champs in boys soccer got a wake up call over the weekend.
The Arcata Tigers took a break from league to play at the McKinleyville Tournament and lost a pair of games to H-DNL rivals.
On Friday, the Tigers opened the tournament with a 1-0 loss to the Eureka Loggers, who are tied with Arcata and Del Norte for the lead in the standings two games into league play.
They would respond with a comfortable 6-0 win over Upper Lake on Saturday, before closing out tournament play with a 2-1 loss to Del Norte later in the day.
The Tigers are now 7-3-1 overall.
The good news for head coach John Davidson and his players is that there is plenty of time to rediscover the form that led them to the league title a year ago and this year’s H-DNL appears to be wide open.
“I thought their back line was very solid, their center backs were solid and their goalkeeper was excellent,” Davidson said of Eureka. “Eureka played with great spirit and energy and clearly wanted it more than we did.
“It burned for our guys and it just goes to show there’s a lot of parity in the league this year.”
The win for Eureka avenged an earlier 4-2 loss to the Tigers.
Jerome Everta scored the only goal of the game for the Loggers, who played in three one-goal games at the tournament.
On Saturday the Loggers lost 1-0 to tournament host McKinleyville, before closing out the two-day event with a 1-0 win over Fortuna later in the day.
The Loggers are now 4-4 on the season.
Del Norte opened tournament play against Fort Bragg and tied 1-1, before winning a pair of games on Saturday, beating Ferndale 5-0 and closing out with the win victory over Arcata.
Del Norte is now 5-2-2.
“We suffered from a lack of speed of play, not being clinical and making rookie technical mistakes, which Del Norte capitalized on,” Davidson said of the loss to the Warriors. “We all need to improve by a large margin and quickly.”
League play resumes on Saturday. Fortuna hosts Ferndale, Arcata plays at South Fork and Del Norte hosts McKinleyville.
