Dixie Boys district

By KEVIN PEARCEY

Sports Editor

And another one bites the dust.

The 14-year-old team once again continued its rampage through district action with an 8-1 victory over Dothan on Monday. Troy played Abbeville, a team they decimated Saturday 20-5, for the championship Tuesday night.

During the tournament Troy has outscored its opponents a whopping 48 runs to seven.

Troy scored two runs in the first inning and five in the second. Brett Pierce went 2/3 with an RBI and Pete VanHorn also was 2/3 on the night. Chase Clower and Chris Nickson was both 1/1, each with an RBI and Luke Sanders was also had a hit for Troy.

Head Coach Butch VanHorn said he pitched his son Pete for the first three innings of the Dothan game and has him available for all seven innings Tuesday against Abbeville if needed

VanHorn said he feels that the team has started playing ball they way that he hoped they would.

"We’re playing good defense and our pitching is solid," VanHorn said. "We’re not quite running the bases as hard as I would like, though."

VanHorn said he wanted the team to play as hard as they could throughout the tournament, but he admitted that it’s hard to keep the intensity level up when a team is regularly chomping opponents up and spitting them out, such as Troy has been doing.

VanHorn said he would look forward to pitcher Chase Kelly rejoining the team. Kelly missed the district tournament with a pulled ligament in his hip and was Troy’s number two pitcher, behind Pete VanHorn.

"He’s getting better each day and he’s going to start working out again soon, throwing and loosening up his arm," he said. "I don’t think the injury will have affected his pitching that much."

Dixie Boys

(13-year-old)

 

The Troy 13-year-old team saw their dreams for a district, and perhaps even state title, end on Monday as they were eliminated from the tournament by Enterprise 4-3.

"

We just couldn’t get some hits at times when we really needed them," said head coach Sam Kitchens. "We left to many runners on base and we also had some crucial errors on defense."

Troy took the lead in the third inning, breaking a scoreless tie, on a Brandon Walters RBI single. But back came Enterprise in their half of the inning and scored three runs to take the lead for good.

Enterprise added a run in the fifth, but Troy scored one run in the sixth and another in the seventh before Enterprise halted Troy’s comeback efforts.

Jeremy Jones went 2/4 for Troy and Walters, Wiley Dees, Josh Daniel and Andrew Folmar all had hits for Troy as well.

Dees pitched all six innings for Troy, giving up four runs, with only one earned, and 10 strike outs.

For Enterprise, Nick Love gave up three runs on six hits, with just one being earned and struck out 11 Troy batters.

Despite the loss, Kitchens said that he was proud of his team’s effort and said they had accomplished a great deal during tournament play.

"Not many people picked this team to get out of sub-districts," he said. "This team did really well."

On a personal note, Kitchens said that he wanted to thank the fans that made the drive to Geneva to watch the game.

"I also want to thank all the parents and relatives of these kids," he said. "And I especially want to thank my wife and daughter."