The Troy Machine pitch Rookies fell behind early in an 8-6 loss to the Enterprise Americans in the District 9 championship.

“They were able to jump on us again and made it 8-1,” said Troy head coach Bobby Templin said. “We had a few runners on base in the final inning and we just couldn’t get them home. I was proud of them for not giving up.”

Enterprise scored two runs in the first inning and by the time the game moved into the third inning Troy found themselves down by a seven runs.

“They just hit the ball well,” Templin said. “We didn’t make a lot of errors; they just hit the ball good. We didn’t hit the ball nearly as well tonight, particularly early on as we did Saturday night.”

Troy battled their way back in the game and cut the deficit to six runs before heading into the final inning. A triple by Cornelius Griffin gave Troy hope, but it wasn’t enough to rally for the win.

Troy finished in second place in the district, which is good enough to send them to the state tournament in Oxford.

“We get to go to Oxford and we will get back to work on Thursday,” Templin said. “We feel like we have a team that can go there and be competitive. I am very happy for the guys. They have come a long way in the last couple of weeks Enterprise has a great team and we ran up against them. We have to become more consistent with our hitting and clean up some things defensively.”

State tournament play begins on July 7.