Pleasant Grove High baseball team headed to Austin for state tournament

TEXARKANA, Texas (KSLA) — Excitement in the air as a Texarkana high school baseball team is representing the ArkLaTex in the Texas baseball tournament after a five-year drought.

“Play for Pleasant Grove going to Austin and play some baseball. It’s going to be fun,” said Hudson Twisdale, of Texarkana’s Pleasant Grove High School baseball team.

An early morning sendoff was held Tuesday, June 8 for the squad, which is on its way to the UIL State Baseball Tournament being held June 9-12 at Dell Diamond and UFCU Disch Falk Field at the University of Texas at Austin.

“I’m just excited for the trip, excited to see how we are going to play. And, hopefully, we will come back with a state championship,” said Alex Galvan, a player.

“Our community support is amazing, as you can see here today. So far, the season has been great and we are going down there and give it everything we got,” baseball coach Riley Fincher said.

The Hawks defeated crosstown rival Liberty-Eylau during the first week of June to become the Region 2 champions and earned the right to go to Austin for the 4-A state tournament. The Texarkana team is slated to play Stephenville in a semifinal game Wednesday, June 9.

“They are on a huge winning streak right now. They are a great team; and we know we will have our hands full,” Fincher said of Stephenville, which has a 28-8 season record.

Pleasant Grove is taking a 33-8 record into the tournament. Fincher said his team is right where they want to be.

“Our expectations here are always very high. We talk to our kids about it, we don’t shy away from it and we say that in the most humble way possible,” the team’s coach said. “But our expectation every year is to finish our season in Austin.”

The first pitch Wednesday is set for 1 p.m. on the University of Texas at Austin baseball diamond.

“It’s going to be fun, a good one. We are going to get the dub,” Twisdale said.

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