The Troy Dixie Minor Rookies championship series got off to a near perfect start, but the day ended with a sour taste.

After cruising to a 16-3 win in the first game of the day against the tourney host team Muscle Shoals, Troy dropped a heartbreaker 7-6 in the night cap of the double header.

In the second game the two teams traded runs for the most part of the day, but Muscle Shoals, the home team, picked up a run in the bottom of the sixth to snag the win.

Troy Dixie Minor Rookies head coach Chris Huner said that the outcome of the second game was not we had had hoped for.

“We get to stay up here one more day,” Huner said with a small chuckle. “We left 10 runners on base, and that turned out to be a big thing. If anyone of those runs would have scored, it might have been different.”

Troy saw nearly the same scenario they face now, earlier in the week. In the bracket finals, Troy fell to Enterprise in the first round, and rebounded in a winner-take-all game to score the win and advance to the championship series.

Huner feels that the experience from earlier in the tournament will benefit his team.

“We dropped the first one to Enterprise and came back in the second one,” Huner said. “These boys are capable of doing it. Everything is reset tomorrow, and we talked to them about getting their mind right for it.”

First pitch is set for 10 a.m.