Warriors determined to end year with a win

Del Norte faces Arcata tonight at 7:30 p.m. at home

Greg Kirby, right, of the Del Norte High football team gets ready to tackle a Fortuna player during a game in Crescent City on Oct. 16. Tonight, the Warriors conclude the season against Arcata at home. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

The Del Norte High varsity football team is ready to end the 2009 season on a high note tonight on their home field.

The Warriors face Big 4 Conference opponent Arcata tonight at home at Mike Whalen Field.

Del Norte head coach Bob Hadfield said the goal is to “play hard and get a win for the seniors.”

With the struggles the 2-6 Warriors have had this year, Hadfield said it would be nice to  end the season with a convincing win.

“I’m sorry we didn’t experience the success we were hoping for,” Hadfield said.

One of the Warriors’ wins this year came against the winless Tigers on Oct. 23 in a 48-0 thrashing.

Del Norte ran over Arcata and finished with 385 yards on the ground and seven rushing touchdowns.

Senior Greg Kirby, who had two touchdowns in the Arcata game, said the team — especially the seniors  — is pumped up and wants to earn a convincing victory.

“This is our last game,” he said. “We just want to go out with the win.”

Kirby said this has been a great year with a close knit team that has enjoyed playing the sport they love.

“It’s  been fun,” he said. “It’s a brotherhood.”

Hadfield said the plan for tonight is to continue to run at their opponent and hope the ground game continues to do well. Last week, the Warriors played one of their best games of the year in a 34-28 loss to Fortuna on the road.

After falling 47-8 in their first meeting, Del Norte almost pulled off the upset. The game was tied at 28-28, but Fortuna scored near the end of the fourth quarter to earn the victory.

Hadfield said the Warriors have shown solid improvement in the past three weeks, and is proud of his team’s “great effort,” especially against the Huskies last week.

“If we played like that all year things probably would have been different,” Hadfield said.

Although, he added, the competition has been quite tough, including Eureka, a team they played twice, which is currently undefeated in the Big 4. 

Another opponent, Ferndale of the Little 5, is still undefeated and is considered one of the better small school teams in the state. And Amador Valley, which Del Norte played earlier this year, is doing quite well. The Dons are second in the  East Bay Conference, which is considered one of the best in the state. Their only loss came to national power De La Salle.

The Tigers are currently 0-9  and lost to Eureka 65-0 last  week.

The junior varsity game begins at 5 p.m. The Warriors junior varsity squad won its second game of the year 22-7 last week. The varsity game begins at 7:30 p.m.

At halftime the eight  inductees for the first class of the Del Norte High School Hall of Fame will be honored.

The hall of fame inductees are: Norman Giddings; Rupal (Patel) Healy; Matt Kelley; Jennifer (Anderson) Larson; Blaine Lopez; Charles Mathews; Ben McClure and Bill Sullivan.