Sports Editor

Did it, done it, gotta love it.

The Troy 14-year-old team took Abbeville to the woodshed Wednesday night, 11-0, and will now represent the city and Pike County in the state playoffs starting on Friday, July 22.

Wednesday’s game washed away the bitterness of losing the night before to Abbeville, 12-2, which forced yet a third meeting between the two teams. Saturday, Troy had left Abbeville for dead on the baseball diamond in Geneva, winning by the final score of 20-5.

Head coach Butch VanHorn said his team was all "business" on Wednesday.

"They just came right out and took it to Abbeville," he said. "We made maybe two mistakes the entire game, other then that it was a perfect outing by our kids."

Troy really didn’t have time to make that many mistakes. The game was over in the fifth inning.

If Abbeville was harboring any ideas of an upset and a repeat of their win over Troy, those dreams were quickly shattered by Troy’s hitting in the first – something that had been missing in action the night before.

Pete VanHorn singled to open up the inning and Brett Pierce followed his teammate with single as well. Daniel Porter drove in VanHorn with yet another single and Elijah Daniel powered a three RBI homerun to follow Porter.

Four straight batters.

Four straight hits.

Four straight runs.

VanHorn said that he’s been trying to get his team to "cut down on their swings" and to just put the ball in play. He said with team speed and base runners like Troy possesses, it puts

more pressure on the defense.

"Home runs are great, but they don’t win ball games," he said. "Running the bases wins ball games. But Elijah just has that natural arc in his swing and if he catches that ball just right it’s gone."

Abbeville had to know that a storm was coming as soon as they went to bat in the top of the first. VanHorn went to work on the mound early, with surgeon-like precision, and sat down the first three batters he faced.

The interesting thing was he didn’t throw a ball against any of them. He threw nine straight strikes.

VanHorn finished the game with 10 strike outs and just one walk.

Oh, and he also pitched a no-hitter.

Just in case Abbeville wasn’t watching, Troy scored four more runs in the second inning. Luke Sanders was walked and then he stole second base. VanHorn came up next and drove Sanders home with a double and Pierce had an RBI single and Daniel also scored in the second. Another run in the third by Fernando White and two runs in the fourth by Lakory Daniels and Chase Clower, rounded out the scoring for Troy.

VanHorn said he felt like his team had something to prove to themselves on Tuesday night.

"I think they were embarrassed by the way they played on Wednesday against Abbeville," he said.