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CHICO — For the first time in program history, the Pleasant Valley varsity baseball team will have an official scoreboard on its home field at Pleasant Valley High School in 2022.

It is the first time the PV baseball team has had a scoreboard on its home field since the Vikings played their home games at Doryland Field at Hooker Oak Park.

The new scoreboard, which began to be put into place Thursday, cost the program $50,000, not including installation costs. Money for the scoreboard came from fundraising over a two-year process. Fundraising led by the Pleasant Valley Sports Boosters program included car raffles, golf tournaments and private donations, Vikings’ head coach Jon Macalutas said Thursday.

Players, coaches, school staff, fathers of players and alumni showed up early Thursday morning to help bring the final pieces of the scoreboard from the storage sheds behind home plate to behind the left field fence where parts of the scoreboard were installed. The main part of the scoreboard was put into place, which included a roughly 12-part piece that features an electronic 10 inning-by-inning scoring system also showing runs, hits, errors and pitches; how many balls, strikes and outs there are; and a light up piece that shows whether a ball is a hit or an error. Above it has a piece that states, “Proudly supported by Pleasant Valley Sports Boosters.”

Still to be put into place is a Pleasant Valley sign on the top and two Viking logos on each side. Once the entire sign is mounted, the electrical will need to be installed and then the company that the PV baseball program bought it from will come to Chico and show the program how to run it. Macalutas said Thursday afternoon that he hopes the scoreboard installation will be finished Friday but could not confirm a finish date at this time.

Local Chico business donated their time, labor and helped with materials for the project — including Rock Creek Construction and Double Diamond Steel amongst others.

As for when the electronic scoreboard will first be put to test, Macalutas hopes to have an alumni game in December. PV hasn’t held an alumni game in Macalutas’ time as head coach beginning in 2019. The last time PV upgraded its baseball field was in 2021, when storage units were installed behind its batting cages.

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