By Robert Griffin

Sports Writer

It’s a hot summer afternoon at the George F. Harris Baseball Complex.

Scattered about the complex, three of the Troup County’s all-star teams are fully involved in practice, getting prepared for the upcoming Dixie Youth and Dixie Boys baseball district tournaments.

The teams are looking to once again make an impression, as they did last year when four teams from Troup County won state championships, and one team captured a World Series championship.

The journey begins June 26 when the district tournaments begin.

From there it’s on to the state tournament, and then hopefully on to the World Series.

The all-star teams were chosen last week, and the teams hit the field this week for the start of practice.

One of those teams is an 11-12-year-old all-star team coached by Jay Anderson, who led a 9-10-year-old all-star team to a World Series championship a year ago.

Many of the players on this year’s team were teammates on a 2008 squad that finished second in the World Series that was held in LaGrange.

A number of those players were also on last year’s 9-10 team that won the World Series.

Anderson said that having a group of kids who had been playing baseball together for a few years was very helpful and has made coaching this year a little bit easier.

“This team has played together for about four years,” Anderson said, “so its very helpful to have that relationship already there. It enables us to be able to start with more advanced work.”

The team has been practicing together since Monday as it gets ready for the 11-12 district tournament, which will be held in LaGrange beginning June 27.

“We have been working on our defense for a majority of the time at our practices,” Anderson said. “We always tell them that defense wins games, so we have been doing a lot of defensive drills in our practices.”

Anderson went on to say that the team has some scrimmage game scheduled for next week in order to “keep the team fresh going into the tournament.”

One of the 9-10-year-old teams from Troup County is being coached by Perry Prather, and he and his players are looking forward to playing in the district tournament, which will be held in Manchester.

“I think we have a really good team that can compete with anybody out there,” Prather said. “Monday was our first official real practice, and we have a good group and think that we will be a good solid team. We just have to keep working in this week that we have.”

Prather said that the team has four players from last year who played in the state tournament, and he hopes that that experience will help the team in the upcoming tournament.

“Its good to have some kids that played in the tournament last year,” Prather said. “It helps just knowing where to go and what to do and what to expect. It’s a lot better when you are doing this to have 12 kids who want to play baseball. They are having a lot of fun out there, and that’s what it’s all about.”