Sports

The total amount of $70,835 was down slightly from last year’s $74,160, still the largest single-year donation given by the Boosters. It is a half-century-old organization of parents and former athletes who want to keep helping out the school’s sports.

Game one of the 2025 Championship series was held on Tuesday, July 29, at Arcata Ball Park, where just two weeks earlier the Packers swept a three-game series.  The Humboldt Crabs made the most of home field advantage to defeat the Healdsburg Prune Packers 10-8 on Tuesday night. The Crabs took an early lead and although the Packers played catch-up all night, tying the game twice, they could not overcome the Crabs....

To no one’s surprise, the Healdsburg Prune Packers begin the last full week of PEL (Pacific Empire League) play on Wednesday with an unassailable 5.5 game lead over two second-place teams, their 20 wins against only three losses demonstrating their dominance. With only three or four games left for each team, a different pennant winner is impossible.

It was almost game time when the fog burned off of the North Coast to reveal the newly remodeled Arcata Ball Park, where Humboldt Crabs baseball fans streamed into the bleachers with high hopes for their team to surprise the league leaders, the Healdsburg Prune Packers. It was not to be.

The dominance of the Healdsburg Prune Packers over the Pacific Empire League, and all of their Northern California rivals in college summer ball, continues. They opened the 2025 season on June 6 and reeled off eight straight victories before encountering PEL rival the Humboldt Crabs on June 18, losing the middle game of a three-game series by a 6-3 score. Now they've won 10 in a row, and counting...

The week just passed encapsulated the great baseball program built by coach Joey Gomes with the Healdsburg Prune Packers. Tons of powerful offense paired with fantastic pitching and defensive web gems, on a team built with rising stars from across the country. It is frankly surprising to see the determination and great chemistry within a team like the Packers after only a month of playing together.

Last Sunday afternoon at Rec Park both fans were treated to the kind of game they like: A tight one that for a while looked like it might be the third loss of the year for the galloping Prune Packers, but in the end proved to be just another number in the win column for the Pack. Plus it had 5 home runs.

The June 18 game was as dramatic as it was unexpected for the home team. The previous night, in the teams’ first meeting this year, Healdsburg built a seemingly insurmountable lead of 11-3 at the end of only five innings, and it looked like another one of those Packer blowouts...

To look at the scoreboard of many recent Healdsburg Prune Packers games, one might think that’s softball being played on the field. On June 14, the Stockton Pearls fell 20-1, and the Bay Area Marauders went down 24-5 on June 15. These are scores more frequently found on diamonds where the bases are 60 feet apart, not 90. In softball, at least at the high school level, the “mercy rule” ends a game early if there’s a 10-point spread. No such rule affects collegiate baseball. 

For the seventh time in eight years, young wrestlers traveled to Healdsburg last week to sharpen skills, compare notes and share their enthusiasm for the sport in the Drew Esquivel Memorial Wrestling Camp, held June 12-14 on the Healdsburg High campus.