By CHRIS BABB | For The Arkadelphian
Around 500 youth baseball players, their families and fans will descend upon Arkadelphia and the Arkadelphia Youth Sports Complex this weekend for the Diamond Youth Baseball State Tournaments hosted by the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission.
Tournaments for 6U t-ball, 7U and 8U coach pitch, 10U and 12U will begin late Friday afternoon, July 5, 2024, with all tournaments concluding either Sunday or Monday evening. Games will be held on six of the seven fields at the sports complex.
Diamond Youth Baseball (DYB) is a national youth baseball organization similar to Little League and Cal Ripken, associations the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission has been affiliated with in the past. This is the first season Arkadelphia’s league has chartered with DYB.
Teams from 10 different leagues, mainly from southwest Arkansas, will compete for DYB State Championships in their respective age groups with the winners of each division advancing to the DYB World Series in Bossier City, Louisiana, August 2-7.
Represented this weekend will be teams from Arkadelphia (including players from Bismarck and Ouachita leagues as well as Gurdon), Ashdown, Hope (Southwest Arkansas), Hot Springs, Magnet Cove, Magnolia, Searcy, Sevier County (DeQueen and surrounding areas), Texarkana and Union County (El Dorado and surrounding areas).
The Arkadelphia Baseball Commission is a solely volunteer-led organization led by ABC President Matt Johnson who was instrumental in the tournaments being held in Arkadelphia this weekend.
“DYB had a conflict with the facility they had originally planned to host the state tournaments and needed to move,” said Johnson. “I inquired about hosting in Arkadelphia and invited the DYB officials to come take a look at our facility. When we showed them the facility and how we could handle six tournaments at the same time, they were glad to host the tournament at our facility.”
Johnson believes tournaments like these are important and good for the city.
“We’re going to have almost 500 players playing this weekend, so with families coming in, we could have three to four thousand people visiting our town, eating in our restaurants, spending money at businesses in town so we’re glad to be able to help bring those people to town. We’d love for Arkadelphia people to come out and watch some good baseball, but we also want the people of the town to be welcoming to our guests who will be here.”
Arkadelphia will field teams in the 6U T-ball, 8U coach pitch, 10U and 12U tournaments. Admission is $5 per person and is good for the entire day. Games will start at 4:00 pm on Friday, 9:00 am on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
First-round games for the Arkadelphia teams are as follows:
FRIDAY
6U: Arkadelphia vs. Hot Springs #2 – 6:00 pm – Field 7
8U: Arkadelphia Red vs. Southwest Arkansas – 6:00 pm – Field 4
10U Div. 1: Arkadelphia Red vs. Hot Springs 10U – 6:00 pm – Field 2
10U Div. 1: Arkadelphia Blue vs. Texarkana 9U – 6:00 pm – Field 3
12U: Arkadelphia vs. Southwest Arkansas – 8:00 pm – Field 1
SATURDAY
8U: Arkadelphia Blue vs. Ashdown/Magnolia winner – 9:00 am – Field 4
For complete brackets, click this link.
For updates on tournaments results, updated brackets and other tournament-related information, visit the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission page on Facebook.
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