Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Humboldt Crabs will close out the 2026 summer baseball season this weekend as local sports fans begin to turn their attention to the upcoming fall sports season and the return of high school and college football. Hello and welcome to this week's KMUD News Sports Report. I'm Ray hamill with humboldt sports.com we'll have more on the Crabs and what was a somewhat disappointing weekend for the team in just a moment as we take a look at all of the big local sports stories of the week, including how the last remaining Humboldt County Little League All Star team fared at the Cal State Tournament, the latest American Legion baseball news, some mute softball news and why it was a big weekend in local motorsports. But first up, the summer baseball season comes to an end this weekend as the Humble Crabs prepare for one final weekend series. Last weekend the Crabs saw any hopes of qualifying for the 2026 Pacific Empire League Championship Series and after taking two of three games against the Medford Rogues, the Crabs went into the final weekend of league play needing help to qualify for this week's league deciding series. But it wasn't to be for the local collegiate summer baseball club. The Crabs opened the weekend with a 125 win over the Rogues at the Arcata Ballpark on Friday night, but would drop Game two of the series the following night by a score of 10 to 5. They would bounce back to take the series rubber match on Sunday afternoon, winning 6 4. However, that wasn't enough to advance to a second straight PEL championship series. The Lincoln Potters closed out league play strong to advance to face the Healdsburg Prune packers for the league title. Medford finished third in the league standings, followed by the Crabs in fourth. The Crabs closed out league play with a record of 1312.
[00:01:44] They continued their season this week hosting the Chico Lone Wolves in a pair of games on Tuesday and Wednesday and they took both games by scores of 103 and 13 3. Three local pitchers featured on the mound in Wednesday's win, including Mckinleyville High School's Joe Tano, who got his first start for the Crab.
[00:02:03] Former Arcata Tigers Miles Oliver and Cedar Klein both also featured in relief with Oliver getting the win. Oliver threw five scoreless innings and gave up just one hit and no walks and struck out three. With the two wins, the Crabs improved to 37 and 13.
[00:02:20] They will close out the 2026 summer season with a three game series against the Placer County Pelleteros this weekend with Game one set for Friday night, followed by a Saturday night showdown and the season finale on Sunday afternoon with first pitch set for 12:30pm Switching gears the local Little League of season officially ended last weekend when the last remaining Humboldt County All Star squad bowed out of their NorCal state tournament. Fresh off their district and section tournament championships, the Eel River 10 year old all Stars traveled to Fremont to play some of the best young teams in the northern half of the state. However, at this stage of the season there are no easy matchups and the county champs would drop two straight games to end an impressive campaign.
[00:03:06] They opened with a 161 loss to Twin Cities out of Larkspur on Saturday before falling 140 to Hollister the following day to close out the double elimination tournament. Despite the two losses, it was a memorable summer for the young Eel river players who dropped just one game in their district and section tournaments combined earlier in the month. The Redwood empire little league 11 year old and 12 year old all Stars saw their seasons end at their respective section tournaments in American Legion baseball action. Meanwhile, the Humboldt Eagles 17 News also saw their season end last weekend at the district tournament in Fairfield. The Young Eagles opened tournament play with a 64 loss to the Fairfield Expos before bouncing back with three straight wins. They beat the Siskiyous Spirits 84 and the All Pro Navy 80 before getting the better of the Solano Mudcats 1710 on Saturday.
[00:04:03] However, multiple teams finished with a record of 31 in pool play and the Eagles did not advance to the semifinals after being eliminated in a tiebreaker. That ended this season for the local club, but it was another successful campaign for the team which won its own tournament in Eureka earlier in the month.
[00:04:21] Switching gears, some local softball travel teams are in action at big tournaments this week. The newly formed Northwest Elite Softball are enjoying their first summer playing together and feature a pair of young teams and at the 16U and 14U age groups. Club founder Daniel Osborne has 25 players from throughout the county on the two rosters, including girls from several different high school programs. Both teams will continue their summer seasons this week at the NAFA Nationals in Newburgh, Oregon which got underway on Thursday.
[00:04:54] Another big tournament in Oregon, the Northwest Alliance Fast Pitch Tournament, is taking place in Medford and will feature a pair of local clubs and the newly formed Humboldt smoke, fast pitch 18 U's and the lost coast chaos 12 U's. The smoke is another countywide all star team made up of players from two colleges and six of the nine HDNL programs. Most of the players on the 15 player roster played together four years ago right before they began high school as part of the Mad River Mist travel program, and they competed at a national tournament in Tennessee this year. According to team coach Joe Brown, several of the players asked him if they could play together again for one more summer, and the team will debut at this week's tournament. Brown says they are planning on hosting a tournament at the Bear River Casino Sports Complex in mid August and are also hoping to host two more tournaments in the fall.
[00:05:52] In local motorsports, it was a big weekend at the Redwood Acres Raceway, and for one driver in particular, the local raceway hosted the third event of the 2026 season on Saturday night and featured a packed night of action, including the always popular NorCal Legend series. It was an emotional night for Kyle Lovell of Willits, who took the checkered flag in the main event for his first win in the series after coming close on several occasions. Racing returns to the local track on August 15th with fan appreciation Night and a packed schedule that will feature the return of the Late Models division. And that's this week's KMUD News Sports Report. Until next time, I'm Ray Hamill with humblesports.com.
