After walking through the sub-district tournament the Troy Dixie Belles Tournament team lost a tight district battle in Ozark to Elba Thursday night, 7-5.

Troy led 5-4 heading into the fifth inning, but after Troy left the bases loaded with no outs, Elba tied the game in the bottom of the inning and scored two runs in the sixth for the win.

“The bats didn’t work well for us tonight and we had some sloppy defense,” Troy head coach Steve Finlayson said. “We left too many runners on base. We had a lot of runners on base, but we left too many on base.”

Troy is in a best-of-three series with Elba and will face them again today at 8 p.m. The district is broken into two divisions, East and West, and Ariton and Wicksburg are playing in the other division for the right to go to the state tournament.

In the game Thursday, Hannah Fountain, Madison Mehaffey, Kristen Finlayson, Conleigh Gilmore and Brooke Hudson each scored one run and Hudson was the only Trojan with multiple hits with two.

Steve Finlayson said the team is not in bad spirits and they are ready to hit the diamond running today.

“This team is ready,” he said. “All the girls asked me if we could practice (Friday) and they are not down at all. They are all positive and they are ready to move forward.”

Troy and Elba square off at 8 p.m. after Ariton and Wicksburg play at 6 p.m.