By Robert Griffin

Sports Writer

After a weekend lounging in the sun and spending the holiday weekend with their families, it was back to the grind for the coaches and players on the Troup County 13-year-old all-star team.

The team, which is preparing for this weekend’s trip to Covington for the Dixie Boys Baseball state tournament, played a pair of five-inning scrimmage games against a team from Columbus Tuesday at the Harris Baseball Complex.

Troup lost the first game 11-8 before winning the second game 10-4.In the first game, Troup was down 11-1 before rallying for seven runs to make the game interesting.

“We were a little flat starting out and made a few errors in the first couple of innings,” Troup head coach Huey Hood said, “but once we got going we made that first game a lot better game.”

Hood said the holiday made his team a little rusty in the first game of the doubleheader, but that it really wasn’t something that worried him.

“Having the time off was definitely a big part of it.,” Hood said “Over the holidays you can’t tell kids that they can’t go on vacation with their families. We still practiced a little and stayed in touch, our numbers were down, but we told them to go be with their families and we will get back to work this week.”

The team got back to work in the second game and posted an impressive result

“That team is really good,” Hood said. “They are headed to Gulf Shores next week to play in the World Series. I have a lot of respect for their coaches and players that they have. They have two high-school coaches that are coaching the team and they are just a quality program.”

Today, the coaches of the teams that are participating in the state tournament this year will have a meeting in Covington, and then the team will return to the practice field on Thursday.

“We will have a real good practice on Thursday,” Hood said, “then take some batting practice on Friday, and then head up on Saturday. We are really looking forward to it.”