Submitted photo – The McKinleyville players in Chico on Wednesday night.

The 2025 McKinleyville 12-year-old All-Stars season did not lack in excitement.

On Wednesday night, with the Section championship and a place in this year’s NorCal state tournament on the line, the young Mack players served up yet another thriller in Chico.

But unfortunately for the District 26 champs, this one did not go their way.

McKinleyville rallied from a seven-run deficit with eight runs in the top of the sixth inning to give them a slender one-run lead.

But the West Redding All-Stars, who had lost a close high-scoring game to McKinleyville on Tuesday night, would not be denied this time around and scored twice in the bottom half of the inning for a 14-13 walk-off win.

In two games between these two teams this week, they combined for a remarkable 54 runs.

And both games went down to the wire.

West Redding came out fired up in Wednesday’s winer-takes-all showdown and scored seven runs in the bottom of the first inning.

McKinleyville would respond with two runs in the top of the second, but West Redding would remain in control of the game and led 12-3 after four innings.

Once again, however, McKinleyville closed out strong.

After scoring 11 runs in the final three innings on Tuesday, they plated 10 runs in the final two innings on Wednesday and appeared to have perhaps done just enough to sneak the victory.

But the West Redding players answered with two runs in the bottom of the sixth to keep their season going.

This was the third one-run game in McKinleyville’s last six playoff games.

We’ll have more on this game and McKinleyville’s memorable season on Thursday.

Submitted photo