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Troy’s 11U All-Stars captured the Dixie Youth Baseball Ozone Rookies Alabama State Championship last week to earn a spot in the Ozone Rookies World Series in July.

Troy Ozone Rookies Coach Josh Powell was proud of the way his team battled to capture the state championship.

“We hit the ground running on Thursday and faced a pretty good Prattville team. They kept us off balanced with some off-speed pitches but we won a hard fought 5-4 game,” Powell recalled. “The boys never got down on themselves and we fought and won that one and then turned around and beat Dothan 18-7 and everything seemed to come alive for us.”

While the Troy All-Stars did suffer one setback, a 10-9 loss, later in the tournament, they were able to bounce back and capture the State Crown.

“We still had that ‘Can’t be beat’ mentality and won the championship game 9-3. It all worked out well for us,” Powell said. “They really embodied teamwork and believed in one another and that’s really the mindset we’ve tried to instill in them since we started. Don’t play for you, play for your teammate and they did that really well.”

Powell has coached many of his players in years past and he said that a number of them have competed in 6U and 8U World Series’. So, they’re no strangers to this level of competition. Powell said that he’s looking to see the same type of mentality from his team at the World Series.

“Really I want to see the same from them that I saw last week,” he emphasized. “Where we are in our gameplay, our mentality and our focus, that’s what I want to see continued. They’re at that age, 11 years old, where if you push too hard they can break and if you don’t push hard enough they can fall apart. I think they’re right where they need to be.

“We decided to give them the week off and then next week we’ll get back to it. It will be the same mindset, the same vision and the same goals.”

The Troy All-Stars will head to Laurel, Miss., for the Ozone Rookies World Series beginning on July 18.