After a 2-0 start to the tournament, The Troy Dixie Youth baseball team rolled into Monday in the drivers seat of the Dixie Boys Baseball State Tournament at the Sportsplex. That changed after Troy met up with also undefeated Spanish Fort and fell 5-3.

In a must-win game against Phenix City, Troy bounced back and trounced Phenix City 12-2 knocking the team out of the tournament.

It was a tale of two games for Troy on Monday, In game one against Spanish Fort, Troy couldn’t buy a hit, but later that afternoon against Phenix City it was a different story.

“It was a tale of two teams,” said Dixie Boys head coach Steve Barron. “We didn’t hit the ball in game one, but we did in game two, 100 percent.

In game one against Spanish Fort both starting pitchers came and shut the door early. DeQuavian Toney got the ball for Troy and shut the door through the first two innings. Toney struck out four batters in the first two innings.

Toney helped his case in the third inning by putting Troy up 1-0.

After Brock Huner led off the inning with a double, Toney drove in Huner with a ground out to second base.

The lead didn’t last long for Troy, though. Spanish Fort answered quickly in the bottom half of the first inning and took a 2-1 lead.

A couple walks by Toney got the inning started before the team garnered two base-hits to take the lead.

Spanish Fort tacked on additional runs in both the fourth and the fifth inning to jump out to a 5-1 lead, a lead that seemed larger with the way Spanish Fort was able to shut down Troy batters, Barron said.

Troy only managed one hit from the fourth inning through the sixth inning and failed to get anything else going in game one on Monday in that time.

It wasn’t until the seventh inning, Troy was able to muster a little offense and plated two runs in the inning.

Tristen Carter led off the inning with a single and advanced to third base on consecutive wild pitches. Following a walk for Cody Hollis, Noah Lowery hit a sacrifice-fly ball driving in Carter.

Two batters later Clay Barron knocked in Hollis to cut Spanish Fort’s lead down to 5-3.

Max Copeland came up with two outs in the inning representing the tying run, hoping to extend the inning and the game, but flew out to right field to effectively end the game.

Troy finished game one on Monday with just five hits. Barron, Copeland, Huner and Carter all had hits for the Troy team.

Huner led the way at the plate going 2-3 with a base hit and a double.

Game two was a completely different story for Troy on Monday night as the team went on to beat Phenix City 12-2.

Although hitting stole the show in game two, the pitching by Barron was also key in the victory.

Barron pitched a complete game, allowing only two hits and surrendering only the two runs earned by Phenix City.

In the third inning, Chance Pollard led of the inning with a double followed by a walk to lead off hitter Trevor Barron. Both of them came around to score in the inning when Tristen Carter plated both runs on a single.

In the fourth inning Troy sent eight men to plate and scored five runs to open the flood gates.

Lowery, Hollis and Carter all got hits in the inning and Troy was on their way to an easy victory

Troy put up their final five runs of the game in the fifth inning. The team, once again, sent a plethora of hitters to the plate. Nine batters stepped to the plate, and five of them came around to score.

Lowery, Jade Sikes, Pollard, Trevor Barron and Carter all had hits in the inning for Troy.

“In this game we started hitting, and when we hit, we hit,” Barron said. “It became extremely contagious for us tonight.”

The Dixie Boys will play against Dothan today at 10 a.m.