Sports Writer

Troy Post 70 Senior Legion baseball team came in to its game with Dothan Post 12 loser’s of the previous two meetings this season.

But Troy turned the tables on its rival Tuesday night.

David Taylor pitched a complete game and blasted in a three-run home run to boost Troy past Dothan, 11-5 at Charles Henderson High School.

"David pitched a heck of a ball game, this is the best team we are going to see all year," Troy head coach Troy Jinright said. "They’ve won the state championship the last three or four years.

"They are like 36-10 and we are coming off a tournament in Demopolis where we played some good baseball," Jinright continued. "We just hit the ball like we can hit it and played good defense."

Taylor allowed baserunners in seven of the nine innings, but managed to pitch out of trouble the majority of the night. Dothan out-hit Troy, 14-11, but Taylor came up with timely outs to keep the Dothan attack in check. Taylor fanned five in the win.

After stranding four runners in the first two innings, Troy broke a scoreless tie in the third with two runs. Scott Stetson lead off the inning by reaching on shortstop Daniel Hart’s error, one of six on the night for Dothan. After Chris Logan flew out, Jonathan Neely singled and Jason Barron walked to load the bases, forcing Dothan head coach Larry Tubbs to pull starter Brian Smith.

Taylor’s sacrifice fly off relief pitcher Ryan Muccio gave Troy a 1-0 lead. Brett Laney followed with an RBI single, extending the lead to 2-0 and Bill Hughes singled in the next at-bat to load the bases once again. But Muccio escaped further damage by forcing Chad Hall to fly out to end the inning.

Troy built the lead to 7-0 in the fifth behind Taylor’s three-run homer. Neely doubled home Stetson and Logan and Barron followed with a walk. Tubbs pulled Craig Karrh in favor of Clint Wade, the fourth Dothan pitcher of the night, to face Taylor with one out. Taylor promptly greeted Karrh by sending a pitch over the ‘blue monster’ in left field giving Troy a 7-0 advantage.

Dothan countered with three runs in the top of the fifth and threatened to cut into the lead even more with two outs and the bases loaded, but Taylor, as he did all night, came up with a clutch out to end the inning.

Logan put the Trojans up 9-3 with some fireworks in the bottom half of the inning. With two outs and Will Jones at first, Logan sent a Wade offering into the right field corner. Rightfielder Ben Woods struggled getting the ball in and his throw went wide of third base as the speedy Logan rounded third and scored behind Jones giving Troy a six-run advantage.

Troy added two more runs in the seventh inning as Stetson scored on a throwing error and Taylor drove in his fifth runner of the game with a single.

Dothan added a run in the eighth and one more in the ninth, but Hughes accounted for all three outs in the ninth, leaving two Dothan runners on base and preserving the win for Taylor and Post 70. Dothan stranded 11 runners during the contest.

Neely lead the Troy offensive attack with three hits and Stetson, Taylor and Laney collected two apiece.

Jinright thinks the win will be a big confidence-booster for his team.

"This is our rival, they are in our district and they will be the toughest team we will play all year. Our type of ball is playing good defense and put the ball in play, we’ve got good pitchers and good hitters, if we just play defense, we can hang with anybody."