Submitted photo – The Road River Rising eighth graders.

By Ray Hamill — Excitement is building for McKinleyville area basketball, as the newest local AAU basketball club in the county gets set to make its debut this weekend.

The newly-formed Mad River Rising is the brainchild of McKinleyville High varsity boys head coach Chris Davis and features five boys teams that will play throughout the offseason.

Four of those teams will debut this weekend at the Battle for the North tournament in Redding.

“We’re excited to get it going and to have this opportunity for Northern Humboldt,” Davis said. “It will be nice to have these kids playing all year round.”

The McKinleyville area community is also apparently excited about the opportunity.

Davis, who took over as head coach of the McKinleyville High boys team this past season and led the Panthers to a Big 5 co-championship and a trip to the NorCal playoffs in his first year in charge, had originally planned on forming a local AAU team for next year, but those plans quickly changed this spring.

“The initial response was overwhelming,” he said. “I was so surprised with the response we got.

“I wasn’t planning on (starting the team) until next year, but we had so many parents and kids asking us about it.”

In the first few weeks, 45 players committed to play.

“There’s a lot of energy and a lot of hype around basketball here right now,” Davis added.

The Rising will field a sixth grade and two eighth grade teams, as well as high school aged freshmen and varsity teams.

The response from the eighth graders was particularly overwhelming, with 20 players signing up, something Davis puts down to the recent success of the McKinleyville Middle School and Fieldbrook Elementary School teams.

One of the Rising’s eighth grade teams will compete at local tournaments only.

The club will practice twice a week and all the players will have plenty of opportunities to partake in open gyms.

“We’re going to try to do as many open gyms as we can to keep the kids playing,” Davis said.

The club teams are scheduled to travel for three out-of-area tournaments this spring, including this weekend’s tournament, and they will also compete at local tournaments hosted by Humboldt Wild Basketball and Team Beasts.

Humboldt Wild and St. Bernard’s varsity boys coach Issac Gildea, who played at McKinleyville High, also helped get the new club up and running.

“For our first season, Issac Gildea helped us get this started,” Davis said. “He has the same goal as I do — improving basketball here on the North Coast — and he was very helpful in getting us started and on the right track.”

In addition to the overwhelming response form local players and parents, there also is no shortage of quality coaches for the Rising.

Davis’ assistant coaches at McKinleyville High, Harlan Leroux and Noah Wheeler, will both coach with the new club, along with Brady Burchett, Chris Shaw, Sam Safier and Victoria Claros.

Davis said he is considering competing in the fall as well.

“It does sound like the parents want to do it, and the kids too,” he said.

For more information on the club, you visit their website.