Two H-DNL teams have advanced to next week’s state playoffs and one of them will play for a North Coast Section championship this weekend.
The section playoffs continued on Wednesday night, with the Del Norte Warriors and the Ferndale Wildcats in action.
The Cats were seeded No. 3 in Division 6 and traveled to Mendocino County to play No. 2 Anderson Valley, losing their semifinal.
Ferndale fell in five sets.
The loss, however, does not end the team’s season.
After defeating Mendocino in the bracket quarterfinals on Saturday, the Wildcats have qualified for the state playoffs for the first time in program history.
The brackets and seeds for the NorCal tournaments will be announced this weekend.
Also in action on Wednesday night, the Del Norte girls continued their impressive postseason run.
The Warriors are seeded No. 1 in the Division-5 bracket and hosted St. Joseph Notre Dame, winning in four sets.
The Del Norte girls dropped the opening set but would rally to win 17-25, 26-24, 25-18, 25-23.
The victory sets up a championship showdown against No. 3 International in Crescent City on Saturday evening, beginning at 5 p.m.
Regardless of whether they win or lose, the Warriors are guaranteed to advance to the state playoffs.
Del Norte has never won an NCS championship and will be trying to join Ferndale (1976), McKinleyville (1986) and St. Bernard’s (2023) as the only local teams to have won an NCS crown.
