Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Drew Vizenor and the St. Bernard’s Crusaders will host an eight-team tournament later this week.

By Ray Hamill — The schedule for this weekend’s St. Bernard’s baseball tournament has been changed with rain forecast for Saturday.

The eight-team tourney, which will be held at the Bear River Sports Complex and St. Bernard’s, gets under way on Friday and will conclude on Saturday.

The tournament was originally scheduled to feature six games on each day, but the opening day will now feature eight games, two for each team, with the action getting under way at 10 a.m.

The tournament is scheduled to finish up on Saturday with the championship, third-place, consolation and seventh-place games, all of which will be played at Bear River.

The bracket features five local teams, many of whom have impressed early, as well as some quality out-of-area teams.

Arcata and University Prep will get the tournament under way at Bear River at 10 a.m., followed by Middletown and Fortuna at 12:30 p.m.

McKinleyville and South Fork will also play at 10 a.m. at St. Bernard’s, followed by St. Bernard’s and Clear Lake at 12:30 p.m.

St. Bernard’s (1-0), Arcata (0-0) and Fortuna (5-0) are all expected to be among the best teams in the H-DNL this spring, while a young McKinleyville team (3-1) has plenty of up-and-coming talent and is off to a strong start.

University Prep is 5-2, Clear Lake is 2-0 and Middletown, which lost to St. Bernard’s this past weekend, is 0-4.

The South Fork Cubs are 2-2 after going 1-2 at the Maxwell tournament over the weekend.

Opening day will feature additional games at SB at 3 p.m. and at Bear River at 3, 5:30 and 8 p.m.

Saturday’s four scheduled games will all take place at Bear River, with the seventh-place game at 9 a.m., followed by the consolation game at 11:30 a.m., the third-place game at 2 and the championship game at 4:30 p.m.