Sports Writer

GENEVA- The Troy Post 70 Senior Legion team needed a late rally to fend off Geneva Tuesday at Geneva.

Troy Post 70 used a complete game pitching performance from David Taylor and rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat Geneva 7-3.

Taylor allowed two earned runs and fanned 10 in helping Troy Post 70 move to 5-3 on the season. Taylor scattered five hits and walked three in the complete game effort.

Taylor’s performance was even more astonishing considering he hadn’t picked up a baseball in two weeks.

"He has been on vacation the last two weeks, so this was his first game back," Troy Post 70 head coach Troy Jinright said. "David struggled early, he walked a few, but he settled down and let Geneva put the ball in play and let his defense do the work. He really got stronger as the game went on."

The game was scoreless into the fifth when Geneva broke through with the game’s first run on an error. Geneva would add two more in the sixth to take a 3-0 lead.

But Troy Post 70 fought back in the seventh. Daniel Hayes put Troy Post 70 on the board, driving in Brett Laney and David Taylor with a double to cut the lead to 3-2.

"It was 0-0 into the fifth, Geneva had a pitcher that was throwing mostly offspeed stuff and we made a couple errors to give them the lead," Jinright said. "We got a couple hits in the seventh, and they took that kid out and brought a kid in who threw pretty much all fastballs and we hit that type of pitcher pretty well."

Troy Post 70 wasn’t done, tallying three more runs in the eighth and two more in the ninth to take a 7-3 advantage. Laney and Jason Barron scored on passed balls and Hayes added an RBI single that scored Taylor in the eighth. Barron’s RBI double and Layton Sanders’s sacrifice fly ended the scoring for Troy Post 70 and Taylor breezed through the ninth on the mound for the victory.

"I really didn’t have to say much when we trailed," Jinright said. "We have some leaders on the team who stepped up and got on some of the younger kids to play better and we took off from there."

Hayes lead the Troy Post 70 offense, going 2-4 with three RBI’s. Laney, Barron, Logan, Drew Ezell, Jonathon Neely and Scott Stetson each added a hit in the win.

The Senior Legion team travels to Panama City, Florida for a tournament Friday through Sunday.