A total of 34 youth baseball teams will descend on James Butts Baseball Complex this weekend for the North Arkansas State Cal Ripken 7- and 8-year-old Tournaments being held in Siloam Springs.
The tournament, which is machine pitch, will begin at noon on Friday, continue on Saturday and wrap up Sunday afternoon.
Admission is $5 a day for adults and $3 for kids.
Siloam Springs will have three teams playing in the two tournaments.
Two of those teams will be in the 8-year-old division.
The Maroon team, coached by Marc Hawbaker, went undefeated in the district tournament and won the championship with a 17-0 win against Gravette.
The Maroon team will play Paragould on Field 1 at 3 p.m. Friday in pool play. Maroon will then play Batesville on Field 5 at 9 a.m. Saturday before bracket play begins Saturday afternoon.
The Gray team, which is coached by Mark Gold, advanced to the semifinals of the district tournament before losing to Gravette by one run. The Gray team plays Osceola on Field 1 at 7:30 p.m. Friday before turning around Saturday morning and playing NEA East on Field 1 at 9 a.m.
The 7-year-old All-Stars, coached by Mike Majors, went 5-1 in the district tournament. The team's only loss came to Fayetteville 15-14 in nine innings in a 2 1/2-hour long championship game.
The All-Stars play Paragould at 1:30 p.m. Friday on Field 4 in pool play. Siloam Springs then plays Jonesboro 6 at 9 a.m. Saturday on Field 4.
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In other state tournament action, the Siloam Springs 10-year-olds will be traveling to Paragould for the 10-year-old North Arkansas Cal Ripken State Tournament.
The 12-year-olds will be heading to Manila for the state tournament (60-f00t bases).
The 15-year-olds, who will host the Southwest Region Babe Ruth Tournament in late July, will play next weekend in Harrison in the state tournament.
Sports on 07/02/2014