A trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., has been a thrill for the entire family of former New Iberia Senior High football coach Bobby Keasler.

Keasler’s grandson, Trey Quinn, is a member of the South Lake Charles All-Stars who won the Louisiana State and Southwest Region championships to advance to the LLWS here this week. Louisiana, as the team is being called, is the top seed among the U.S. semifinalists and plays Tampa, Fla., today at 7 p.m. The winner advances to play Waipahu, Hawaii, in the U.S. finals at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s been very exciting,” said Angie Keasler Quinn, Trey’s mom, in a phone interview Wednesday. “These boys have been playing baseball together, starting with T-ball, pretty much since they were six. They play football together too.”

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Trey Quinn and his dad Dave, an assistant coach with the Lake Charles team, were busy with team activities on Wednesday and could not be reached.

Dave focuses mainly on the pitchers when coaching. Trey is one of those pitchers, throwing a six-inning, complete-game no-hitter on Sunday as Louisiana beat Jeffersonville, Ind., 9-0. Quinn struck out 12 batters and allowed only two baserunners, one on a walk and the other after being hit by a pitch.

Three of the players are the main pitchers, with three others possibly getting time on the mound. But every player on the team has pitched in at least one game this year, said Angie Quinn, so all are capable.

“Trey and the majority go to S.J. Welch (Middle School),” she said. “They will all be in seventh grade and they are (good friends).”

Though it’s been exciting, it’s been a long season for the family. Trey’s older sister Kaylin (14) and younger brother Carter (8) are on the trip, as are their grandparents, New Iberia natives, Linda and Bobby Keasler. Great-grandmother Flo Barras and several aunts, uncles and cousins still live in New Iberia, though the Keaslers moved when Bobby was hired as head football coach at McNeese State University. He later coached at UL-Monroe, the new name for his alma mater, Northeast Louisiana University.

It was at NLU that Quinn’s parents met, while Dave Quinn was playing baseball for the Indians. He later gave up baseball to concentrate on his studies, said Angie Quinn, who lived in New Iberia until she was about 13 years old.

As might be expected from a family that includes a coach who led New Iberia Senior High’s football team to the state championship game in 1979 and McNeese to the NCAA Division I-AA championship game in 1997, the three Quinn children all are involved in athletics.

Trey plays football and basketball in addition to baseball, Kaylin is a cheerleader and tumbler and Carter, who turned 8 on Saturday, also plays baseball and football. And dad Dave helps coach the football, baseball and basketball teams.

“We stay busy,” said Angie Quinn.

But this trip has been one of the highlights.

“This is a part of the country I’ve never seen and probably would never have had the opportunity to see if not for the baseball,” she said. “When you play Little League you want to advance. But you have to win district, then state, then regionals to get here.

“It’s a pretty good haul. I think when the adrenaline wears off we’ll probably all crash when we get home.”