William Barnes knew said he knew hosting the Dixie Youth 9-10 State Tournament was going to be a difficult feat to pull off, however, with the help of countless parents, coaches and volunteers, he pulled it off quite nicely.

The Hattiesburg American All Stars left Natchez with the State Championship, as Natchez played three games before being eliminated by Carthage on Tuesday night.

&uot;I&160;think it was a real good experience both for me and the kids, because we both learned some things from hosting state,&uot;&160;Barnes said.

&uot;Some of the things we learned were that there are no so-called easy teams in a state tournament.&uot;

Barnes said munor miscues hurt his team in the tournament.

&uot;We had one bad inning in each of the last two games,&uot;&160;he said.

&uot;Even though we won the second game we played in the tournament, we could’ve gotten out of that game in six innings, but we had that one bad inning that forced us to go 10 innings, and that hurt us.&uot;

Starting pitching, Barnes said, was what suffered at the hands of those two bad innings.

&uot;We lost one starting pitcher in each of those two innings, so, like I&160;said, it was just those two innings that cost us,&uot;&160;he said.

However, Barnes did see several good signs come out of the tournament for both he and his team.

&uot;We saw that we could compete with any team in the state,&uot;&160;Barnes said.

&uot;We had the best from around the state come down and play a week-long tournament, and we saw that we could compete with any of them.&uot;

Barnes did say, though, that despite all the positives, there were also some not-so-positive things that came of the tournament.

&uot;The off-the-field stuff was tough on all the coaches,&uot;&160;he said. &uot;We had to make sure everything went smoothly, and whenever someone had a question they came to us.&uot;