SPANISH FORT, Alabama — The Spanish Fort American League All-Stars claimed the District 7 O-Zone title Tuesday night on their home field, The Fort, with a 13-5 championship-round win over Municipal Park National of Mobile.

The Spanish Fort AL team swept through the district tournament without a loss and will now move on to the O-Zone State tournament at Volanta Park in Fairhope July 13-19.

District runners-up like Municipal will have one more shot at making the state event by winning their sub-state tournament in Troy next week.

Despite the sweep, the SF AL All-Stars faced challenges along the way from Municipal in earlier pool play, but rallied to come from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1. Their co-host, Spanish Fort National, almost forced a play-off by taking a late lead in their semi-final game with their AL co-hosts Monday, but Garrett Dyess’ walk-off homer in the bottom of the sixth inning sent the AL club straight to the title round.

Dyess then closed on the mound for the AL team in the championship going three innings and also went the distance in the 2-1 win over Municipal earlier in the tournament.

The 12-year-old right-hander said making it to the state tournament was like a dream come true.

“Oh wow, this is something I dreamed about as long as I can remember,” he said. “Going to state. It’s what we all wanted. Wow. We just wanted it. We’re extremely happy. We just worked so hard and never gave up.”

Starting pitcher Tyler Miller held the Municipal offense to three runs while also helping himself at the plate to stake Dyess to a 6-3 Spanish Fort lead to begin the fourth inning.

“Both of those guys throwing for us tonight — Tyler and Garrett — along with great defense, got it done for us,” said SF AL head coach Manny Estrada. “But up until today we had not played a complete game. We’ve had good pitching, had great defense, but tonight we actually hit the ball to match the defense and pitching and it showed. Great kids all the way around, great parents. We worked hard at it. The kids put in a lot of time practicing. Garrett has been our stopper and really came through. Tyler is a real all-around player, pitches, catches, hits well and Peyton (Caron) our short-stop is outstanding and is also a real go-to guy on the mound for us. He and Pearson (Cockrell), our second baseman are great middle infielders for us. Made some great double plays.

Estrada attributed the win to a team effort.

“Grant (Betts) capped it off with a big home run and that kind of put it out of reach. But we’re excited to get to play in the state tournament and represent Spanish Fort. Right now we can celebrate, but then it’s get right back to work and get ready for it.”

J.T. Fillingim homered in the first inning with Miller aboard for a 2-0 Spanish Fort lead. Municipal came back with three runs in the second but Betts reached and scored on an error to tie it up 3-3. SF got the bats going again in the third to score three more, one in the fourth and six in the fifth. Brown had three hits, Abshire and Caron two. Betts also had a hit to go with his three RBI home run in the fifth. Fillingim also had three RBIs. Miller and Dyess scattered six hits against Municipal. Will Chapman led the Mobile team with two hits including a double.

Tournament director Scott Smith said the event went smoothly and showcased a lot of baseball talent.

“Been a great tournament,” he said. “Had a lot of close, exciting games. About three or four were tight, one-run games so the competition was good and had good weather, too. No delays. Had a lot of home runs. Had seven home runs in one game from the Spanish Fort National team and C.J. Perciavalle (on that team) hit three of those back-to-back-to-back. And one was a grand slam. But there were also some good low-scoring games with good pitching. Turnout was good and I think the kids enjoyed it.”

The entire 12-member team representing Spanish Fort is made up of players Josh Abshire, Grant Betts, Nathan Brown, Pearson Cockrell, Peyton Caron, Garrett Dyess, J.T. Fillingim, Jalen Hicks, David Meadows, Tyler Miller, Brian Pempel and Jacob Ponder.