The Arcata Tigers opened Little 4 conference play in convincing fashion with a 51-0 win over the McKinleyville Panthers as last year’s conference champs didn’t miss a beat with the shutout win. Arcata wasted no time scoring on both of their first two possessions to jump out to a 13-0 lead in the first quarter off of a pair of rushing touchdowns, including one from senior running back Antonio Buchanna in his first game of the season after transferring over to the Tigers. Senior safety Lennon Gider got an interception for Arcata to give the Tigers the ball back in McKinleyville territory late in the first.
“This is one of the better starts to the season that we’ve had as a program, not just in my tenure but you can go back and look at Arcata football, it’s not really been a football school for a long time,” Arcata head coach Matt Magers said. “So it feels good to put ourselves on the map like this but it’s still early in the season, still got five games left before playoffs, can’t be happy with what we’ve done so far. We’ve got to play to win the right way — as good as we played, there’s lots of things we could have done better.
” Things only got more lopsided once they entered the second quarter, with Arcata outscoring the Panthers 30-0 in the period. Surprisingly the quarter actually was off to a good start for McKinleyville, with junior defensive back James Fike intercepting the reigning Little 4 conference MVP, Tigers’ junior Luke Lemke, but the.
