By Ray Hamill — The McKinleyville Panthers have been rewarded for their breakthrough season with a top seed in this year’s North Coast Section football playoffs.
As expected, the Panthers are one of six H-DNL schools to qualify for the postseason and all six have received favorable seeds.
However, it wouldn’t be an NCS selection Sunday without some surprises.
Three local teams have been placed in the top four in Division 5, but two of them have been drawn against lower-seeded league champions and will have to travel for their opening-round games.
For NCS purposes, Del Norte is the only one of the three Pacific League co-champs that receives league champion privileges for the postseason after winning a three-way coin flip on Saturday night.
Fortuna is seeded No. 2 in the D-5 bracket, one spot ahead of St. Bernard’s, despite the fact that the Crusaders are ranked 14 spots ahead of the Huskies in the NCS rankings.
But that’s not necessarily bad news for SB, which will host its opening round game against a non-league champion, while Fortuna will have to open on the road against a lower-seeded league champion.
If both Fortuna and St. Bernard’s win their opening games they would play each other in a semifinal for the second straight year, this time at Husky Field.
With Ferndale also in the D-5 bracket, we could also see a Milk Can rivalry matchup in the Division-5 championship game on Thanksgiving weekend, if both Eel River Valley schools win their opening two games.
Del Norte and South Fork also have qualified for the playoffs.
McKinleyville and Ferndale each received No. 1 seeds.
The Panthers (7-3) will open on Friday night against No. 8 Kelseyville (6-4) in their first playoff game since 2022, and as top seeds they won’t have to travel out of the area for any of the NCS games.
The Knights are the NCL I champions.
The Wildcats, who are 9-1 and have the best record of any local team, will open on the road at No. 8 Montgomery in Santa Rosa, also on Friday night at 7.
The Vikings are 8-2 and are the Redwood Empire-Mountain conference champs.
Had the Wildcats not suffered a surprise loss at McKinleyville a few weeks ago, a result that cost them a league title, they would have hosted Montgomery as a higher-seeded league champion.
As the No. 2 seeds in Division 5, Fortuna (7-3) will play at No. 7 Salesian (7-3), the Tri County – Rock conference champs, on Saturday afternoon at 1.
No. 3 St. Bernard’s (8-2) will open at home against No. 6 Concord (8-2) on Saturday afternoon at 1.
Del Norte will also open at home.
After two big wins over playoff teams — McKinleyville and Fortuna — to close out the regular season, the Warriors (5-5) rose in the rankings and received a No. 3 seed in Division 6.
They will host No. 6 San Rafael (8-2) on Friday night at 7.
The South Fork Cubs (7-3) are seeded No. 3 in the NCS eight-player Division-1 bracket and will open the four-team tournament at No. 2 Priory (8-1), a team that beat them 68-6 a few weeks back.
That game is scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 1.
