Reinforcing the little things in practice is key to success for Troy O-Zone Rookies to win in the state tournament.

Troy will make the 251-mile trek to the The Shoals this weekend to take part in the 2014 Dixie O-Zone Rookie State Tournament.

“We are excited and the kids are excited and if we play our baseball we will be alright,” head coach Brett Stallworth said. He wants to execute all the fundamentals of the game and does not want to give up any walks or errors.

He wants his team to field all the ground balls cleanly; make the right throws and catches. He and his coaching staff have been working on these aspects of the game each practice.

The Rookies are coming off a win last week against Crenshaw County, whom they beat to become District Champions. They lost the first game of the day to them, but took the second game with a close 15-14 win.

The Rookies won the state tournament last year under Stallworth and he hopes they will win again this year.

“These kids know what it takes to win and what they have to do,” he said. “We are still playing like we are trying to get into the World Series and trying to play one step above that.”

One improvement he wants to see from his team is fielding. He said his team made a lot of errors at District. He also has already told them they will not win a single game if they commit the errors they did last week.

“If we clean that up then I don’t think there is a team up there who can beat us,” he said. He added his team is going to score runs they just have to prevent the other team from scoring theirs.

He wants to take it one game at a time and when they get to the end they know they will have accomplished something huge.

“We have to do the basics,” assistant coach Wes Allen said. “We have to put the ball in play, have to play defense and have good pitching.”

Allen said he does not think they have played their best game yet and they are trying to keep them loose and in a good frame of mind.

The Rookies will start off the state tournament Saturday in Muscle Shoals. They will play at 7:00 p.m. at the Sportsplex.

“We don’t want them to think too much and go out and have fun. The fun is in the winning,” Allen said.