By Ray Hamill — What a week it’s been for H-DNL soccer, and it’s not done yet.
Even considering the diluted nature of the North Coast Section fall playoffs over the past decade, it’s still been a very impressive postseason for the league teams, boys and girls.
The league won two championships and is in contention to add two more on Saturday, which could give the H-DNL four of the five NCS fall championships this season.
And that makes H-DNL soccer our choice for athletes and teams of the week.
We’re used to seeing the girls teams succeed and that continued to be the case this season, with Ferndale and Eureka winning championships.
The H-DNL girls have now won 11 of the last 12 fall section championships dating back to 2021 and 14 of 18 dating back to 2017, when many of the section schools made the switch to a winter season.
But the boys have joined the party this year.
Eureka and Arcata will each play for a first-ever NCS championship on Saturday.
The Tigers, who have a rich tradition and history in the sport, qualified for a first-ever NCS championship game a year ago, but came up short against Head-Royce.
This year they’re back in the Division-1 championship game with many of the same players, who are eager to use the lessons they learned a year ago to their advantage this time around.
The Tigers, who have not given up a goal in two playoff games, will play at Sonoma Academy on Saturday afternoon.
The Eureka boys will also play a first-ever section crown on Saturday night, when they host Redwood Christian in the Division-2 decider.
On Wednesday, the Loggers played in a first-ever section semifinal and edged league rival Del Norte 2-1 in double overtime.
That put them in a first-ever championship game, where of course they’ll be hoping to win a first-ever championship.
No matter how the Tigers and Loggers fare in the biggest games of their season — or the biggest games in program history, for that matter — it’s already been a hugely successful campaign for both schools.
The league’s girls teams, meanwhile, are well used to making program history.
On Wednesday, the Eureka girls traveled to Lake County to take on Kelseyville in the final and won 1-0, knocking off a team that was riding a 22-game unbeaten streak and had not lost a game since opening day, winning all but one of those 22 games.
The championship is the sixth in the past eight seasons for the program, which has established itself as the most dominating in NCS fall soccer.
That title also matched St. Bernard’s (six each) for most all-time by an H-DNL program, boys or girls.
The Crusaders also enjoyed an outstanding season and postseason run, barely falling 2-1 to Kelseyville in overtime in the semifinals last Friday night.
The Fortuna girls, who were the first Pacific League team to ever win a section championship back in 2017, barely lost their semifinal to Eureka, when it took a penalty shootout to separate the two league rivals after they tied 2-2 in regulation and overtime.
Any one of those three league teams could have won this year’s Division-1 title.
The Ferndale and Del Norte girls have been equally impressive this month.
Two schools that are better known for their achievements on the football field are fast becoming powerhouses in fall soccer.
They played each other in Wednesday’s Division-2 final in Crescent City — the second straight year they faced off in an NCS final — with the Wildcats edging their Redwood League rivals 2-0 for the pennant.
The section crown is the third in four years for the Wildcats, who are building a program that has quickly earned the respect of the rest of the league and section teams.
Likewise with the Warriors, who have evolved from a team that was happy to win a playoff game for the first time ever in 2022 to one that is now competing regularly for NCS championships.
Congratulations to all of the league teams that made a lot of noise in this year’s playoffs, and good luck to the Arcata and Eureka boys on Saturday, as they look to make more league history and cap what would be the greatest season ever for H-DNL soccer.
