By CHRIS BABB | Special to arkadelphian.com
For the second straight summer, the Arkadelphia Youth Sports Complex will welcome around 500 players and their families from nine different Arkansas towns this weekend as the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission hosts the DYB State Tournaments beginning Friday and Saturday.
This is the second year that Arkadelphia leagues have participated with the DYB organization after stints with the Little League and Cal Ripken youth baseball organizations.
Different age groups will compete for DYB State Titles or to qualify for Regional and DYB World Series berths. 7U, 8U, 9U, 10U, 11U and 12U teams will begin competition on Friday with the 6U tournament starting on Saturday.
The winners of the 6U tournament and odd-year divisions (7U, 9U, and 11U) will compete to advance to the Regional World Series in Texarkana later in the summer. The winners of the 8U, 10 and 12U divisions will qualify for World Series competition in South Carolina the first week of August.
Towns and counties represented other than Arkadelphia will be Ashdown, Camden, Magnolia, Sevier County (De Queen and surrounding communities), Southwest Arkansas (Hope and surrounding communities), Stuttgart, Texarkana and Union County (El Dorado, Parkers Chapel and surrounding communities).
With the number of families and fans visiting Arkadelphia this weekend, tournament director Matt Johnson of the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission believes that tournaments like this can have a significant impact on Arkadelphia.
“These families are visiting our town and are going to eat in our restaurants and spend money at some of our local businesses, so an event like this can be a great thing for a community like ours,” Johnson said. “We had an aerial picture of the facility taken last year at one of the peak times of the tournament and the entire complex was filled with cars and people, showing just how many people an event like this brings in.”
Johnson said the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission stepped in last year as a willing host when arrangements with the original host site for the DYB state tournaments fell through due to a date change. DYB’s experience in Arkadelphia was so good that Johnson was able to secure the tournaments for 2025 as well. Playing in the DYB organizations puts the Arkadelphia leagues with leagues and towns of similar sizes and situations.
“We believe the leagues that play with DYB are representative of the size of towns and types of teams that our players will eventually be facing when they get to the high school ranks,” Johnson said. “Five of the communities that will have teams this weekend are in the same conferences that Arkadelphia High School plays in. It’s just a more similar level of competition than what we’ve had in some of our past experiences with All-Star competition.”
Arkadelphia will field teams in the various age groups in the tournament made up of players who played in the local Arkadelphia league. Arkadelphia has sent a team to a World Series four times in the last eight years.
Play will begin Friday at 4 p.m. for all divisions except 6U which will begin Saturday. Complete brackets can be found on the DYB Arkansas website here (look at tabs on the top of the page). Below is the listing of the first games of the tournament for the Arkadelphia teams:
6U
Arkadelphia vs. Texarkana – Saturday – 12:00 pm – Field 3
8U
Arkadelphia 7U vs. Sevier County – Friday – 4:00 pm – Field 4
Arkadelphia 8U vs. Stuttgart – Friday 8:00 pm – Field 7
10U
Arkadelphia 9U vs. Stuttgart – Friday – 6:00 pm – Field 3
Arkadelphia 10U vs. Winner of Camden vs. Texarkana 9U – Saturday – 9:00 am – field 2
12U
Arkadelphia 11U vs. Camden – Friday – 8:00 pm – Feaster Park
Arkadelphia 12U vs. Sevier County – Friday – 8:00 pm – Field 1
Admission fee is $5 cash per person per day for all spectators above age six. Admission is free for all children age six and under. Concessions will be available, so only team coolers to be in the dugouts with the teams are allowed to be brought into the park.
For updates throughout the weekend with regards to schedule changes or any information such as weather-related issues, visit the Arkadelphia Baseball Commission Facebook page.
ARKADELPHIA DYB STATE TOURNAMENT TEAMS (all rosters in alphabetical order)
Arkadelphia 6U – T-Ball
Kanyon Bell
Logan Berry
Carter Brown
King Campbell
Dawson Davidson
John Denton
Rhett Doucet
Jameson Johnston
Hudson Miller
Memphis Patterson
Cordae Ramsey
Edison Watson
Manager: Devin Davidson
Coaches: Lee Doucet, Russ Denton, Spencer Miller
ARKADELPHIA 7U – COACH PITCH
Rustyn Baswell
Jay Beard
Wynn Blankenship
Jake Brandon
Owen Bryant
Weston Fogerty
Grayson Garner
Weston James
Hank McMahan
Kairo Talley
Mason Taylor
Asher Ussery
Manager: Branson Beard
Coaches: Daniel McMahan, DeQuan Talley, Garrett Garner
ARKADELPHIA 8U – COACH PITCH
Kipton Beene
Carter Clark
Brennan Cupp
Blaine Hodges
Luke Looper
Paxton Magbsy
Kellin Markham
Cayton McCoy
Brody Menotti
Madden Newsom
Riley Robinson
Garrett Ross
Manager: Cole Clark
Coaches: Anthony Magsby, Ryan Looper, Sharrod Robinson
ARKADELPHIA 9U
Max Brown
Jacob Chastain
Calvin Killian
Maddox Ledbetter
River Loy
Kanin Meeks
Levi Parish
Daxton Pinson
Indy Price
Karson Tigue
Beckett Wilson
Manager: Corey Brown
Coaches: Kyle Tigue, TJ Meeks
ARKADELPHIA 10U
Casen Arnold
Jaxton Benson
Bryce Cupp
Reed Daniels
Charlie Doss
Maverick Ford
Dean Forga
Shayd Guin
Maddox Jester
Grayson Plyler
Mason Richardson
Adam Thompson
Manager: Colt Daniels
Coaches: Blake Forga, Clint Arnold
ARKADELPHIA 11U
Asher Arnold
Christian Bennett
Layne Harvey
Alex Hughes
Corbin Key
Maverick Lofton
David Luna
Landon Maccarino
Bryce Magsby
Ryder Mccuistion
Herrin Spinks
Braxton Whitfield
Manager: Jay Spinks
Coaches: Josh Hughes, Ryan Arnold
ARKADELPHIA 12U
JD Bryant
Davis Buckalew
Will Clark
Carter Culp
Aiden Farrell
Zane Holiman
Will Howard
Drake Hrabal
Ryker Hrabal
Jaxson Johnston
Kade Mackey
Manager: Jason Johnston
Coaches: Joe Bryant, Trey Clark
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
