BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
BEAUREGARD — The Beauregard Diamond League Baseball 10U team claimed the Division II state championship, defeating Ashford 6-1 and 3-1 in back-to-back games at Thompson Park in Montgomery on June 29.
Beauregard finished the tournament 7-1-1 after going 3-0 in district play before last Thursday.
With the victory, the team will participate in the 2026 Diamond Youth Baseball World Series in Laurel, Mississippi, from July 22-27.
After losing a tough game midway through bracket play, Beauregard 10U head coach Clay Messer said his team showed fight coming out of the consolation bracket.
“We lost a tough one on Saturday for sure after we made it down the last inning and had the winning run on third base,” Messer said. “We pretty much played every game after that like it was Game 7 of the World Series and really tried to conserve what we had. In the end, it all worked out.”
After drawing 4-4 with Cottonwood in the pool play game on June 25, Beauregard finished the first day off with a 4-1 win over Geneva to set up the rest of the run.
That string of wins included a 13-2 drubbing of Valley on June 26 and an equally impressive 10-0 win over Reeltown in the first game on June 27.
However, a valiant comeback attempt against Ashford later that afternoon fell short with a heartbreaking 3-2 loss, forcing Beauregard into the consolation bracket and a win-or-go-home scenario.
“At the end of the game we lost, I had a smile on my face — which I typically don’t get that way — because I knew we did everything right,” Messer said. “I knew we had the best team, in my opinion, there, and I knew that if they played well and we coached them right, we would put ourselves in a position to win.”
That pressure indeed brought out the best in Beauregard, which defeated both The Ville 11-2 and LaFayette 11-2 in elimination games on June 28.
That set the stage for Monday afternoon’s championship games against Ashford and the opportunity to exact revenge for the sole defeat two days earlier.
With the state tournament now over, the team will now shift its attention to the DYB World Series in three weeks.
During that time, Messer said he and his coaching staff plan to take a deep dive into the analytics to improve the team’s performance.
Specifically, he said they’ll focus on improvising baserunning and stringing hits together to maintain pressure on opposing defenses.
Until then, the boys from Beauregard will continue enjoying their state tournament win and dreaming about what may be in store for them in the Magnolia State.
“I think we’re capable of doing very well down there,” Messer said. “I think we’ve got a really solid team top to bottom, with each kid having his strengths, and then there’s us coaching and putting them in the best position to win.”
