By DAN BISER

SHALLOTTE – It’s appropriate that Kyle Hufham hails from the community of Delco.

That’s because on Thursday evening, the right-handed Hufham appeared to be powered by a high-intensity, super-charged battery.

By pitching a no-hitter while striking out 19 batters in the first game, and coming back with a 3-for-3 hitting effort in the second game, Hufham had a big hand in pacing the Columbus County All-Stars to a two-game sweep of host Brunswick County in the best-of-three championship series of the 2006 North Carolina Dixie Boys (ages 13-14) Baseball Tournament at Shallotte.

The 8-0 and 10-5 victories gave Columbus County its 21st state Dixie Boys championship since 1976. It was Columbus County’s third straight state title and its 10th in 11 years.

The Columbus team will depart Wednesday for the 2006 Dixie Boys World Series, which will open Saturday at Grand Prairie, Texas. The North Carolina champions will meet Crosby, Texas, at 4 p.m. (CDT), in Saturday’s opening round of the 12-team double elimination World Series tournament.

Columbus County and Brunswick County had advanced to the tournament’s state championship series by winning their respective seven-team brackets.

Columbus head coach Curtis Andrews, who also coached last year’s state DY champion, said that Hufham’s pitching had set the tone for the entire evening.

“It’s as good a pitching as I have seen at this level,” Andrews said. “He struck out nine of the first 10 batters he faced and the other drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch. He threw with a lot of confidence and really took charge. It really set us up well for the second game.”

Hufham’s pitching was so dominating that Brunswick managed to hit only two fair balls, both weak pop-ups in the sixth inning.

Columbus County scored a run in each of the first two inning and then exploded for five runs in the fifth behind a two-run double by Beret Proctor and singles by Hufham, Tommy Ranalli, Kyle Canady, Jonathan Marvin and Jonathan Reynolds.

Proctor had three hits while Ranalli, who scored in the second inning, had two hits. Laython Ward scored after knocking a double in the first inning. Kenneth Reaves had a run-scoring single.

In the second game, Hufham led off the second inning with a triple and scored on a single by Canady. Hufham later added a double and single and scored two more runs.

Proctor was the winning pitcher. He was relieved by Marcus Fowler with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning when Brunswick County scored four its runs.

Columbus County scored two runs each in the second and third innings and brought home five in the fifth inning. Proctor, Canady and Jonathan Reynolds each had two hits and Mikey Watts had one hit.

Brock Holmes went the distance on the mound for Brunswick County. Quan Ray had two hits while Garrett Rayfield and Alex Memory each had a double for the host team.

Columbus County opened the tournament on July 22 with a near-disastrous 6-5 loss to Bladen County. However, it bounced back to take a 10-0 win over Duplin County and then posted a pair of 13-1 thumpings of Bladen County before topping East Lincoln 9-5 in the bracket championship game.

Brunswick County went through its bracket play undefeated.

“Things really didn’t start out well for us,” Coach Andrews said. “We knew we had the talent to do it with, but our practices weren’t all that great and we went out and made seven errors in the first game.

“But once we got our backs against the wall, our guys really turned it around, and everybody stepped it up,” said Andrews, who is assisted by Randy Coleman and Bobby Proctor.

Seven players on the team were members of last year’s North Carolina Jr. Dixie Boys champion, which posted a third-place finish in last year’s Jr. Dixie Boys World Series at Muscle Shoals, Ala.

Columbus County previous state Dixie Boys championships came in 1976, 1979, 1983, 1984, 1987 through 1989, 1991 through 1994, 1996 through 2002, 2004 and 2005.

In World Series play, the Columbus County All-Stars had runnerup finishes in 1999 and 2004. They have had several third-place finishes.

In the finals of the six team North Carolina Jr. Dixie Boys (age 13) Tournament, held on an adjacent field, host Brunswick County edged Duplin County 4-3 for a berth in the Jr. DB World Series, which will also be held next week in Grand Prairie, Texas.

FIRST GAME

Gause, Perkins (5) and Memory; Hufham and Canady.

SECOND GAME

Proctor, Fowler (6) and Canady; Holmes and Turner.