News Photo by James Andersen Alpena's Jack Steinke makes contact with a pitch during a 12U baseball game on Friday during the 2017 Cal Ripken Michigan State Tournament. Steinke hit a home run in Alpena Blue's win over Macomb Clinton.

Big hits and heads up base running got the Alpena Blue 12U baseball team off to a winning start.

Alpena had several big hits, stole several bases and took advantage of several errors to defeat Macomb Clinton 13-3 by mercy-rule in five innings during the first day of pool play on Friday at the 2017 Cal Ripken Michigan State Tournament.

Jack Steinke hit a solo home run and stole home to score another run for Alpena, which scored six runs in the bottom of the second inning and never trailed.

Lucas Weir and Tucker Bright had a two-run single and two-run double respectively to back up Steinke’s home run in the second inning.

Macomb scored three runs in the top of the third inning to cut the lead to 6-3, but Alpena controlled the game the rest of the way.

Steinke stole home to score a run in the bottom of third to make it 7-3 and Alpena caught fire again in the fourth, tacking on five more runs. Two of Alpena’s runs in the fourth came on passed balls and Alpena scored two more on errors.

Macomb went 1-2-3 in the top of the fifth inning and Cam Stevens scored Alpena’s final run in the bottom of the inning to give Alpena the win by mercy-rule.

Alpena Blue continues pool play today with games against Alpena White at 8 am and Howard Township at 4 pm.