{"id":321437,"date":"2026-06-03T20:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T20:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321437\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T20:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T20:51:13","slug":"pleasant-grove-baseball-prepares-for-its-second-chance-at-calallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321437\/","title":{"rendered":"Pleasant Grove baseball prepares for its second chance at Calallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXARKANA, TX\u00a0(KTAL\/KMSS)<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Pleasant Grove is making its return to the state championship after dominating West Plains in the state semis.<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s just one game left in the season for the Hawks, and one game left in a \u2018Grove\u2019 jersey for the nine seniors.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you play like it\u2019s your last game you can\u2019t lose,\u201d said senior catcher Buck Anderson.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second year in a row Pleasant Grove baseball is going to state. It\u2019s also the second year they are facing Calallen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went down there, they beat us. We came home with tears. We don\u2019t want that. This year is gonna be different come around,\u201d said senior Christian May.<\/p>\n

This year Pleasant Grove knows what to expect from Calallen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a lot from last year\u2019s game. I think they scored a majority of their runs with two outs so we know our pitchers have to go out there and finish innings. I have to do a lot better job with pitches I call. We know they\u2019re very very good. Obviously they can swing it, they can pitch, they\u2019re very well coached. Like I said earlier it should be a very fun atmosphere,\u201d said head coach Riley Fincher.<\/p>\n

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One difference between this year\u2019s team and last\u2019s is a year of maturity. But the Wildcats have that as well. However, Pleasant Grove has spent that year feeling the emotions from that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always feed off our losses and we always feed off going on the road. Last year is one of the worst feelings I\u2019ve had in my baseball career, just going down there and coming so close but just falling short a little bit off of a few plays Calallen forced to happen they\u2019re a great team,\u201d said Anderson. \u201cI\u2019m excited to play them though it\u2019s great teams we like to play and we wouldn\u2019t want to play anyone else in the state championship. It\u2019s a competitive factor. We love to play against good competition and we love to play against people who beat us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pleasant Grove isn\u2019t relying on just one star to push the Hawks to greatness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m most proud of all the younger guys stepping up. Everyone thinks the seniors are the leaders, they\u2019re going to be the ones to contribute but there\u2019s been plenty of games where the seniors haven\u2019t been able to do anything and the younger guys have stepped up and gotten us some big wins and I think that\u2019s awesome,\u201d May said.<\/p>\n

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Regardless of the outcome, this week will forever be cherished as the last time this group played together.<\/p>\n

\u201cSentimental a little bit, but at the same time I don\u2019t have time to worry about that we have to get to work and just enjoy the last week with these guys there\u2019s no one else I\u2019d rather do it with,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Pleasant Grove will face Calallen in a single game series on Friday, June 5 at 9 am at Dell Diamond in Round Rock, TX.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXARKANA, TX\u00a0(KTAL\/KMSS)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Pleasant Grove is making its return to the state championship after dominating West Plains in the state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[115096,6440,155,157,156,8356,38623],"class_list":["post-321437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-buck-anderson","tag-calallen","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-pleasant-grove","tag-state-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}