MARQUETTE — State tournament time has arrived in Marquette.

The Little League state Majors Division tournament in girls softball will be played at three fields at the Kaufman Sports Complex in north Marquette starting Saturday morning. The three fields are adjacent to each other at the park located on Hawley Street.

Fourteen teams from around the state, including three from the Upper Peninsula — host and district tournament champion Marquette, district runner-up Ishpeming and another district champion Escanaba — play in a modified pool play format on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, then switch to single elimination to end the event on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Schedule-wise, at least that’s the hopes of organizers, who can only pray and cross their fingers — or both — that stormy weather mostly holds off.

“We’ve been working on this for about six months, and everything seems to be going along as planned,” said Mandy Wyatt, who is co-chairing a Marquette Little League state tournament committee with Kate Havel.

While the state’s 16 districts usually rotate who hosts each year’s tournaments at various levels of softball and baseball, a specific Little League association like Marquette’s usually only gets to host a specific tourney like Majors Softball about once every 60 years.

“So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us,” Wyatt said.

Though there are 16 districts around the state, which makes for the perfect number for tournaments like this, not every district either wants to or can send a team to every state tournament.

In this case, it was going to be a 13-team field for the Majors Division event until Marquette’s home district — that’s District 11 — was allowed to bring in another one of their teams, in this case, district tourney runner-up Ishpeming, to make for an even number of teams.

Marquette clinched the district title with a win over Ishpeming at the same Kaufman fields on June 26.

The district includes both those associations along with Negaunee, L’Anse-Baraga, Houghton and Calumet.

Though it’s an even number, 14 teams still makes for two pools that are a bit lopsided as the scheduling wouldn’t work with an odd number of teams — in this case, seven — if the pools were of equal size.

Instead, Pool A will have eight teams and Pool B will have six, with four teams from each advancing to the single-elimination quarterfinals on Tuesday.

Teams were placed and each opponent was determined randomly according to national LL rules, Wyatt said.

Marquette drew the six-team Pool B while Ishpeming will be in the eight-team Pool A. For these girls softball players ages 12 and 13, they will play one game a day all the way through until the final day, when the semifinal winners from that morning have to come back to play the championship game that afternoon.

Again, that’s the plan as long as there aren’t major weather concerns.

“We have contingencies in places for delaying games for a couple hours if that’s what we have to do,” Wyatt said of the tournament’s 28-game schedule.

One thing that helps is that no games are scheduled to start later than 4 p.m. on any day of the event.

Admission — by state LL rules — is free, though organizers are hoping to raise some funds with a concession stand and also the sale of souvenir merchandise, including clothing, on site.

The Marquette LL also has three major sponsors to help defray costs of hosting the tourney — Travel Marquette, Double Trouble DJ’s and Midway Rentals.

Some of the costs Wyatt cited were umpire fees and their expenses to travel and stay here, concession costs, field upkeep, softball equipment, trophies and medals, and tournament programs.

While the field names are officially denoted by the letters A, B and D (C is a field sized for younger girls’ softball), they will each receive the name of one of the major sponsors during this event.

Wyatt also explained that as of July 4, the event was still in need of a handful of volunteers for tasks such as scorekeeping, announcing and scoreboard operating. To sign up, visit the website www.signupgenius.com/go/stateconcessions.

Wyatt also mentioned that while the Kaufman parking lot can hold an estimated 225 vehicles, there are several nearby locations that will be used, if necessary, for overflow parking, such as the Northern Michigan University’s Jacobetti Center. She expects there will at least be signs to direct people to those locations.

Marquette opens its run against fellow U.P. team Escanaba of District 10 at 2:15 p.m. Saturday, then faces District 8’s Alpena at 10 a.m. Sunday before squaring off against District 15’s Edwardsburg at 3:30 p.m. Monday.

Ishpeming goes up against District 7’s St. Clair at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, plays District 16’s Plymouth Canton at 12:45 p.m. Sunday and finishes pool play vs. District 13’s Rogers City at 12:45 p.m. Monday.

A coin toss will determine the home team in every game.

Tuesday’s quarterfinal schedule won’t be set until the final order of teams in each pool is determined after Monday’s games. Games that day will be played at two fields with start times of 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

The semifinals will both be played at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with the state championship game set for 1 p.m. the same day.

Here is the entire pool play schedule, with district number of the team in parentheses, and the field the game will be played at:

POOL A

Saturday — Georgetown (9) vs. Rogers City (13), 10:30 a.m., Field D; Ishpeming (11) vs. St. Clair (7), 11:30 a.m., Field A; Plymouth Canton (16) vs. Parchment (2), 1:15 p.m., Field D; Jackson Southwest (3) vs. Bullock Creek (1), 1:45 p.m., Field C.

Sunday — St. Clair (7) vs. Rogers City (13), 10:30 a.m., Field C; Jackson Southwest (3) vs. Georgetown (9), 11 a.m., Field D; Ishpeming (11) vs. Plymouth Canton (16), 12:45 p.m., Field D; Parchment (2) vs. Bullock Creek (1), 3:30 p.m., Field A

Monday — St. Clair (7) vs. Jackson Southwest (3), 11 a.m., Field C; Ishpeming (11) vs. Rogers City (13), 12:45 p.m., Field A; Plymouth Canton (16) vs. Bullock Creek (1), 1:15 p.m., Field D; Georgetown (9) vs. Parchment (2), 1:45 p.m., Field C

POOL B

Saturday — Huron (5) vs. Edwardsburg (15), 11 a.m., Field C; Marquette (11) vs. Escanaba (10), 2:15 p.m., Field A; Alpena (8) vs. Grosse Pointe (6), 4 p.m., Field D

Sunday — Marquette (11) vs. Alpena (8), 10 a.m., Field A; Huron (5) vs. Grosse Pointe (6), 1:15 p.m., Field C; Escanaba (10) vs. Edwardsburg (15), 1:45 p.m., Field D

Monday — Escanaba (10) vs. Grosse Pointe (6), 10 a.m., Field A; Huron (5) vs. Alpena (8), 10:30 a.m., Field D; Marquette (11) vs. Edwardsburg (15), 3:30 p.m., Field A