The Ozone Rookie team got off to a slow start in their District Tournament Friday night, in a 21-10 loss to Enterprise for game one of a best two out of three series.

Enterprise had a relentless offensive attack all evening taking control of game one early, forcing Troy to win the remaining two contests to advance out of district play.

Poor defense at times and lack of control from the pitching staff plagued the Ozone Rookie coaching staff.

“It all starts with throwing strikes, and we had some trouble with that early on,” Chris Huner said. “It’s hard to defend walks. It got to be that the deficit got to be too large to come back from. They had some timely hits and some walks. We will battle back tomorrow and win two games to win the tournament.”

The trouble started early for Troy in the first inning with Enterprise having all four of their starting batters reach base. With bases loaded, few wild pitches plated a couple runs and Enterprise cleared the bases on a double that gave them the early 4-0 lead.

After Troy went down consecutively in the bottom half. Enterprise went back to work at the top of the second and tacked on their fifth run of the game with a leadoff home run.

Troy broke through in their half of the second inning with starting pitcher Skylar Kidd leading the team off with a strong-hit double to right field. After a walk by Laquavin Rodgers giving the Rookies two runners on base, both Kidd and Rodgers scored on wild pitches to cut Enterprise’s lead down to 5-2.

Wild pitches proved to be Troy’s weakness as a third base was gained costing Troy another run in the top of third inning ending Enterprise’s lead to 6-2. Enterprise went on to tack on two more runs with a base hit to centerfield.

Troy wouldn’t go down fighting, however. JD Wilson and Kase Chirico led off the third inning with walks, and Wilson scored Troy’s third run on an error pushing the score to 8-3. Chirico followed suit and scored the fourth run when Noah Prestwood was caught in a run down. Troy scored their final run in the fifth, when Adrian Cardwell reached on an infield single.

“They did show a lot of fight, and we did answer back most times after they scored,” Huner said. “They had a big inning late in the sixth to put the game away. I thought the boys played hard, and they didn’t quit.”

Enterprise put the game away in the final two innings scoring a combined 12 runs nailing the coffin shut for Troy.

But, Troy was not going to go away without making a little noise in their final at bat. With Kidd, Rodgers and Jeffrey Warrick all on base, KenCorius Boykin hammered a pitch to centerfield sending the ball over the fence and out of the park earning a grand slam, sending his teammates out of the dugout in celebration.

Huner hopes that the late momentum will carry over into game two, tomorrow night in Enterprise.

“In game 2 we have to score early, we will be the visitor so we will bat first. Hopefully we will flip the table and score first and stay on top,” Huner said.

Game two will be in Enterprise tomorrow evening, first pitch is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

If a game three is necessary, first pitch will follow shortly after the conclusion of game one at approximately 8:00 p.m.