For the overflow crowd of high school baseball fans on hand Monday night when Dyersburg and Dyer County met in the semi-final round of the District 13-AA tournament, the game was well worth the price of admission.

Both squads put run-scoring rallies together throughout the contest, but as the dust settled at the conclusion of the contest, the night belonged to Dyersburg after the Trojans squad advanced to the championship game with a solid, 12-6 victory.

The No.2 seeded Trojans never trailed in the seven-inning contest against the No.1 seeded Choctaws, avenging two regular season defeats with the win.

"The bottom line is you have to give Dyersburg a lot of credit. They came out and their bats were hot and they came up with the big hits and we didn't," said Choctaws head coach Preston Ozment. "We had the bases loaded once or twice and plenty of times we had runners on the bases, but we just couldn't capitalize."

As of late the Dyersburg squad has been on fire at the dish, and the team wasted little time continuing to build on the momentum of an 11-game winning streak with four runs in the opening inning.

Trojan senior Michael Brown led off the first, sending the third pitch of the game from Dyer County's B.A. Davis over the wall in dead center field. The 400-foot solo blast may have been the beginning of the end of the Choctaws.

Dyersburg's Les Smith beat out an infield single before Tyler Childress and Bryson Horner walked to load the bases for teammate Austin Crisp. After a called Balk allowed Smith to cross the plate, Crisp drilled a pitch to deep center to push two more across home for a 4-0 advantage, one Dyersburg head coach Tom Mathis was glad to see.

"As a coach you always want to see your team get on the board first and tonight we were able to do that. (Michael) Brown's home run really seemed to ignite us, but we knew this was going to be a tough ballgame just like it turned out to be.

(Advertisement)

The Choctaws attempted to answer in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases before Tyler Robertson scored on a wild pitch from Dyersburg's Tyler Childress. The left-hander worked out of the jam however by fanning Morgan Bowser to end the inning, stranding two runners to trail 4-1.

In the bottom half of the third, Childress found himself in another jam, with the bases juiced with two outs and the hard-hitting Davis at the plate. The Trojan senior responded, getting out of trouble after Davis went down on strikes to end the inning, leaving three Choctaws stranded.

After a big first inning, the Trojans looked to put the game out of reach in the fourth. With the bases loaded, Les Smith stepped to the plate and delivered a scorcher to the gap in right-center, scoring two for a 6-1 advantage before Childress drove a pitch to the outfield to plate Smith for a 7-1 lead. Dyersburg added an additional run in the inning when Adam Smith stroked a single to right-center to plate a hustling Zane Mathis to put the Trojans on top, 8-1.

Though the Choctaws bounced back in the bottom of the fourth with five runs to trim the deficit to 8-6, Dyersburg's Ryan Wood took the mound to start the fifth and the Dyer County runs came to a screeching halt thanks to a solid performance from the left-hander. The junior slammed the door shut on any thoughts the Choctaws had of staging a comeback, throwing the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings to earn the save.

Though the Trojans won the contest, the squad was in the same position a year ago and failed to close the deal, something Mathis realizes.

"We've been here before and as of right now we haven't done anything. We will go to work tomorrow just like we always do and get ready for the next game. Who the opponent is doesn't matter, we just have to keep working on the things we have been doing well and not get complacent with being where we are," added Mathis.

The Choctaws will face Crockett County this afternoon at 5 p.m. for the right to play Dyersburg in the District 13-AA championship game on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.