Little 4: Crusaders seek 7th straight title
High school baseball league play season is happening on the North Coast: The Little 4 opened up conference play Thursday with all four teams in action, St. Bernard's hosting South Fork while Hoopa Valley hit the road to play Ferndale.
Last year, the Little 4 belonged to St. Bernard's, with the Crusaders going a perfect 12-0 in conference but this year's team will look a bit different. St. Bernard's will be without its ace from last season with 2023 Little 4 MVP Tyler Dimmick graduating after posting a 0.63 earned run average over 16 appearances. Along with Dimmick, the Crusaders also graduated allconference players Tyson Meyer and Brayden Luna. St. Bernard's won six Little 4 titles in a row, dating back to the 2016 season with the Crusaders going 54-6 in league since the streak began and going 24-0 over the past two years in conference.
In the middle of last year's Little 4 standings was Ferndale, which finished 6-6 and South Fork which went 5-7 in conference. Ferndale will return its entire roster from a season ago, giving them plenty of experience while South Fork has already seen more success in the preseason in 2024 than they did in 2023 where they went 0-5 in non-conference games. Hoopa will look to improve after a 3-17 season last year.
As for this season, the Warriors are 1-6 with the lone win coming in a tournament game against Trinity 14-5. St. Bernard's started the season 2-6-1 with wins over Trinity and Hoopa. Ferndale is 3-0-1 in 2024 while only facing local teams in its preseason and South Fork is 4-2 after a loss to Fortuna on Wednesday 7-3 to snap a fourgame winning streak for the Cubs.
The other local high school
baseball league, the Big 5, won't start play until Wednesday giving teams one more weekend of preseason before diving into league play. Three teams in the Big 5 already picked up four wins, with McKinleyville at 4-2 after a pair of wins over University Prep at home last weekend, Del Norte at 4-2-1 and Arcata at 4-3-2. Behind them are the Fortuna Huskies who sit at 2-3-1 and Eureka at 1-1.
Del Norte has the first week bye with the odd amount of teams in the league so the Warriors will play Ferndale before competing in the Hidden Valley tournament next weekend. Fortuna had a doubleheader Thursday on the road against Kelseyville to close out their preseason after two games earlier this week against Ferndale and South Fork.
The Panthers final tuneup before league play begins will come Saturday in a doubleheader as they'll face Ukiah and Cloverdale on the road. Arcata competed in a tournament at Montgomery High School, tying the first game 4-4 against Analy before losing two games to Rancho Cotate 16-5 and Montgomery 8-4.
Big 5 play will commence Wednesday with Fortuna on the road against McKinleyville and Arcata heading down to Eureka to face the Loggers.