The Troy Dixie Minor Americans tried their hardest to pull out a win in Geneva Tuesday night against the hometown team, but Troy came up a little short and lost 12-9 to end its state tournament hopes.

“I am real proud of this group of guys,” Troy head coach Ken LaBrant said. “They kept fighting to the end, but we just couldn’t pull it out.”

For the second straight night walks hurt Troy’s chances of victory and the fifth and sixth innings spelled doom for the Trojans.

Troy took a 4-1 lead after the first and pushed that lead to 7-4 by the fifth inning, but Geneva scored four in the fifth and four in the sixth to go up 12-7.

Troy scored two in the bottom of the sixth, but could not overcome the Geneva advantage. The loss may have stung for a while, but LaBrant said he was pleased with the reaction after the game.

“Right after the game the guys were mad for about five minutes and then when we huddled up they were all talking about how they were going fishing or going to Disney World,” he said. “It was neat to see their response. They were able to get over it and move on with life. They did a good job with that and it was a good lesson for us adults. They showed us how to move on and not worry about it.”

LaBrant said Geneva hung with Troy and never went away and eventually took the game.

“They hung tough and had two two-out rallies to beat us,” LaBrant said. “We were very close to getting out of the jam both times, but before we knew it in the sixth it was 11-7. When we got down 8-7 and got out of that jam we thought we had it, but I guess not.”

No matter the outcome, LaBrant said he was proud of the effort all tournament season.

“I am very proud of these kids and we had such a great time with the players and the coaches,” he said.

Statistics were not available at press time.