Selma’s Dixie Boys baseball team is headed to the World Series for the second year in a row after winning the state championship this past weekend in Eufaula.

A dominating 24-0 performance over Eufaula earned Selma a spot in the World Series, which will be played in Independence, Louisiana, on July 20.

“It felt great for them to finally win it hands out, to finally finish the job they went to do,” said Selma coach Ricky Waters. “This was basically the same group of guys that I took to the World Series last year.”

Waters’ 14U team lost the state championship last year with back-to-back losses to Enterprise, but they still ended up going to the World Series after Enterprise backed out. This year, the circumstances are different.

Selma won the first game of the state championship tournament 7-5 over the Wiregrass Cardinals with Matthew Davis pitching.

They won game two 6-1 over East Montgomery behind Amarian Molette. Game three was an 11-1 win over Goshen behind Octavius Palmer. Jeremy Lee was the winning pitcher in Selma’s 24-0 game four and championship victory over Eufaula.

“It was outstanding because we haven’t had that many practices together,” Waters said. “With the end of school, and then graduation and vacations, I’ve just been trying to put a group of boys together to play, and they just did an exceptional job.”

Water said the team didn’t miss a beat from the end of last year’s season to this year’s state championship win.

“It’s almost like they left off where they were playing last year,” he said. “That was a big boost for these kids to come back and play again this summer. This group of kids stayed in touch with me all through basketball and football season. They couldn’t wait until baseball season started.”

Selma’s other all-star teams are still vying for state championships.

The 7-and-8-year-olds will play for a district championship Tuesday. They won the first two games in the tournament 23-2 against Monroeville and 16-2 over Thomasville. They will play the winner of Thomasville versus Eclectic.

The 9-and-10-year-olds won the sub-district tournament this past weekend over Holtville in a best of five series after the other two teams dropped out. Selma won the first three games 19-0, 9-2 and 24-3 to win the championship. They will move on to play for the district championship, which be either in Grove Hill, Thomasville or Monroeville.

The 11-and-12-year-olds will play Tuesday for the sub-district championship. The 13-and-14-year-olds are not playing in tournaments yet.