After over a month of nonconference football for H-DNL schools, the Little 4 will open up this weekend to start the six-game league slate with two teams still sporting undefeated records entering league play. The 4-0 Ferndale Wildcats will look to keep things rolling against the Hoopa Valley Warriors on Saturday in Ferndale at 2 p.m.
, with the Wildcats getting wins over Big 4 schools in back-to-back weeks and pushing their current win streak to double-digits, having not lost since Little 4 play a season ago. After a last-second defeat to Etna High School to drop to 0-2, the Warriors have won two straight in convincing fashion, outscoring opponents 80-20 to get their record back to .500.
Hoopa has totaled 856 yards of offense in the two wins. Last year’s matchups between the two teams weren’t particularly close, with the Wildcats winning 50-0 in the season’s first matchup, before Ferndale won 49-0 to end Hoopa’s season. However, back in 2022 the Warriors took both matchups over the Wildcats.
If Hoopa wants to get back to that level of success against Ferndale, they’ll have to slow down the Wildcats running attack, which totaled 369 on the ground last week against St. Bernard’s and have gotten 1,337 rushing yards through four games this season. The other Little 4 matchup is the Arcata Tigers playing as the host for the McKinleyville Panthers at the Redwood Bowl at Cal Poly Humboldt Friday night at 7:30 p.
m. The Tigers are 4-0 while the Panthers are on the other side.