Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – McKinleyville’s Cooper Jones delivers a pitch during Saturday’s game at Hiller Park.

By Ray Hamill — All three McKinleyville All-Star teams will try to bounce back after opening-day defeats at their state tournaments on Saturday.

The McKinleyville Juniors fell 5-1 to Lincoln Glen in Millbrae, while the McKinleyville 12-year-olds lost to Capitola-Soquel 6-4 in Stockton.

At Hiller Park in McKinleyville, the host Mack 8-10s dropped their opening game 11-5 to Dublin.

The Mack Juniors will try to keep their playoffs going when they play again on Sunday at 2 p.m., while the 12s will also play on Sunday at 4 p.m. when they match up against Maidu.

The McKinleyville 10s will play again on Monday at 3:30 p.m.

The loss was the first in the postseason for the McKinleyville 12s, who led by three runs early on Saturday but saw that advantage disappear when the Capitola-Soquel All-Stars scored all six of their runs in the third inning.

“We’ve just got to hit the re-set button,” McKinleyville head coach Quintin Carper said. “I think we’ll be fine. I like our matchup. Maybe that’s what we needed.”

The Maidu All-Stars also lost their opening game in Stockton, falling 10-0 to Bollinger Canyon on Saturday.

Despite their loss, the McKinleyville 12s out-hit Capitola-Soquel almost four to one.

Everett Gruetzmacher, Teoh Arredondo and Hudson Kapko each had two hits in the win, with the latter hitting a blast off the top of the outfield fence for a double.

“His bat came alive today,” the coach said of Kapko, who has been very impressive on the mound this summer. 

Breyden Brock, Carson Hicks, Tyson Marshall, Mikey Shumard and Blake Carper each also had a hit in the loss.

“We made a bunch of mental errors,” Quintin Carper said of the third inning. “We just had that one inning of hiccups, and we stranded a bunch of base runners.”

Donny Chivrell got the start on the mound and impressed.

“I thought he threw really well,” Quintin Carper said. “He was dominating on the mound.

“Our pitching staff all did their job.”

The McKinleyville 10-year-old All-Stars, meanwhile, battled back from an early three-run deficit and tied the game with three runs in the top of the third, two of them coming on a Tatum Brock single.

A talented Dublin team, however, quickly re-took the lead in the bottom half of the inning and would add seven more runs over the following two innings to open up a commanding 11-3 advantage.

Casanova Marshall also had an RBI walk for the host team, while the impressive Brock drove in a third run in the top of the sixth before the in-form Cooper Jones, who has been hitting the ball very well this week, closed out the scoring with an RBI single later in the inning.