As a Eureka native, I'm concerned about M-A's talent level. There's no mistaking the fact that one team has a bunch of legit, high-level D-I talents. And M-A just won a section title over an excellent team in a tough section/division.
That said, Eureka High teams that get deep into the playoffs like this are really good, tough teams. It's a small town public high school, so there are ebbs and flows with the talent level and, in turn, results. But when a good group comes through it's a group that has been playing together their whole lives. This group of seniors has gone 23-1 as upperclassmen and has improved a lot since the start of last season. The lone loss was on a last-second FG at Rancho Cotate (which has been excellent) in last year's playoffs after EHS was a whisker away from just running out the clock with a time-consuming drive (before some officiating high jinks popped up and extended a helping hand to the home team).
It's always interesting to see how coaches react to making the trek north into Humboldt or Del Norte County for a playoff game. It's incredible how often there will be postgame quotes from a losing Bay Area coach about A) the travel (as if all the H-DN teams don't have to travel the same distance down all the time) and/or B) the weather/playing conditions. Sure enough, I read a couple quotes in an East Bay Times article published Sunday that fit this mold: Las Lomas' coach called Eureka High's Albee Stadium "unplayable" and M-A's coach accused Eureka High of being untruthful about the field conditions.
News flash, guys: they still play football games on grass and football games aren't canceled due to rain/mud. Albee Stadium was very wet between the hashes last weekend, but that tends to happen when a storm rolls through. The field is also in a small ravine. Both teams had to deal with the conditions. In fact, it was Eureka that lost FIVE fumble before halftime (two deep in LL territory when about to score and two deep in its own territory without allowing points). LL couldn't score and Eureka still managed a 21-0 win (that easily could've been of the 35+ to 0 variety) over a team that had been dominant all season.
This game has since been moved to McKinleyville High (an additional 20 minutes north of EHS), which is on a bluff over the ocean. It's a flat piece of land, so it should be less wet/muddy, but it'll still be plenty wet if there's more rain this week, and it's grass. It also gets extremely foggy there at times. I've been to games at Mack that were legitimately like the infamous Fog Bowl game.
Anyway, it's always interesting to think about how the team traveling up there will react. Will they make excuses in advance? Will they wilt because they're not playing on dry, pristine artificial turf? Will they look at this as a challenge and use it as further motivation? I know M-A is pissed about having to travel while Wilcox is playing a home game.
I think it'll be a good game and, assuming it can avoid losing a bunch of turnovers again, the inclement weather should help Eureka. And it has rolled everyone this season, including all the playoff teams it has faced. I'm rally excited to see what happens, but I'm not sure what result would surprise me. I'd probably be most surprised by a lopsided M-A win even though it has a ton of talent. History has shown that Bay Area teams don't handle travel and the wet grass fields of H-DN country well. I mean, their coaches tell us as much after these types of games.
