A good opening round for the local schools in the North Coast Section soccer playoffs continued on Wednesday night, with three more H-DNL teams advancing.
The Fortuna boys and girls teams, who are competing in the Division-1 brackets, both won their opening games to set up all-local matchups in the next round.
The No. 12 seeded boys traveled to Calistoga to play the No. 5 Wildcats and won 2-1, while the No. 3 Fortuna girls hosted No. 6 Clear Lake and won 6-1.
The win for the Fortuna boys sets up a quarterfinal showdown at Arcata on Friday afternoon at 2:30.
The Tigers are seeded No. 4 in the bracket and had an opening-round bye.
The win for the Fortuna girls sets up a semifinal showdown against No. 2 Eureka Loggers under the lights on the new Albee Stadium all-turf field on Friday night at 7.
The Eureka girls also had an opening-round bye.
Also in action on Wednesday night, the Eureka boys got the better of Trinity Prep 3-0 in Division 2.
The No. 6 Loggers will their quarterfinal at No. 3 Credo on Saturday ight at 7.
Four other H-DNL teams were in action earlier on Wednesday.
The St. Bernard’s girls won 3-0 at Technology, the Del Norte boys won 4-0 against Kelseyville, the McKinleyville boys fell 5-3 to College Prep and the South Fork boys lost 4-2 to Brave Christian.
The Fortuna boys, who are the last local boys team to win a section championship (2019), won a close game against the Wildcats, a team that Fortuna head coach Daniel Holmes described as “very talented.”
Kevin Herrera and Eli Velasquez each scored for the Huskies.
“Proud of our effort tonight,” Holmes said.
The Fortuna girls, meanwhile, comfortably took care of business against the Cardinals, scoring three goals in each half.
“Overall, I was happy with how the girls started and responded coming out of halftime,” Fortuna head coach Arnulfo Aguirre said. “We showed what we can do when we play with energy and move the ball well, and it was a good team effort all the way around.”
The Huskies started fast and opened the scoring within two minutes, with Jozlyn Dahl finding the back of the net after being set up on a nice pass from teammate Keyani Crossley.
Dahl would add to her team’s tally just a few minutes later with her second goal of the game, after being set up by teammate Erin Hunter on a breakaway.
Crossley would make it 3-0 later in the half, netting off a corner kick, but the visitors would carry some momentum into the half after scoring just before the break, also from a corner kick.
The setback, however, was just a minor one for the home team, which would end the game as a contest with three more second-half goals.
Once again, the Fortuna players started the half strong and scored within the first two minutes, with Madison Miller chipping the Clear Lake goalie to make it 4-1.
Miller would score again just minutes later, before Tayla Fontaine closed out the scoring late in the game, netting from a corner kick.
The Ferndale and Del Norte girls teams each also qualified for the playoffs and had opening-round byes in Division 2.
