On a night where several cancer survivors were honored before the game and most of the crowd donned pink shirts, the Troy Trojans baseball team won a big GWOC North game against Piqua 9-1 in front of a solid crowd at North Market Street Field on Monday night. It was the first of two games against the Indians as Troy is in their stretch run heading into the post season tournament.

Troy pitcher Ryan Lavy shut out the Indians for the first four innings while the Trojans built their lead. After two Piqua runners reached in the opening inning, Lavy escaped without any damage done before the Trojans came to the plate to set the tone to the game early.

With one out, the Trojans went to work. Ryan Lavy and Trenton Wood each reached on singles and Alec Demore reached on a walk to load the bases. Dalton Cascaden then was hit by a pitch to drive in the first run of the game for the Trojans.

Collin Moeller then lined a double into centerfield, scoring both Wood and Demore to push their early lead to 3-0. The Trojans weren’t done, as Zach Thompson knocked in Cascaden on a ground out then Jared Bair had ab RBI when he scored Moeller with the fifth run of the inning for Troy.

Leading by five runs early, Lavy dodged a bullet often for the Trojans, as Piqua challenged with runners on base in several of the innings.

Derek Hite singled to lead off the second inning for Piqua, but he was left there as the next three batters were retired. In the bottom of the second, the Trojans added to their lead. Josh Fulker reached on a single, stole second, moved up to third on a flyout to right, then scored when Wood hit a sacrifice fly giving the Trojans a 6-0 lead.

In the fourth, Piqua challenges when they put two runners on via a hit and walk, but Lavy retired the next two batters to get out of trouble. Piqua though finally broke through in the fifth inning when they scored on a sacrifice fly to cut the Troy lead to 6-1.

They came back in the top of the sixth with a threat by loading the bases with one out before Troy coach Ty Welker brought in reliever Nick Matney, The Trojans junior retired the next two batters including a big defensive play by Thompson as he snagged a ball to keep the bases full of Indians.

Three more runs scored in the sixth for the Trojans, highlighted by a long two-run homerun from Bair, along with a run scoring single from Wood to push their lead to 9-1.

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