pronoun problem

[pradeepkaushal9518]

Although the baseball team practiced more diligently that year than their prior years in the end it still lost the championship to the opposing team

A.their prior years
B.they had in prior years
C.in prior years
D.they had for any prior years
E.in their prior years

plz explain yr answers

[Osirus@VeritasPrep]

Its C. It took me a looooonnnnnngggggg time to understand when words can be left out. Basically with comparisons, you can leave out words as long as there is no ambiguity. In this one its clear that baseball team is what is being left out because comparisons have to be structurally parallel. Therefore, the subject would need to come right after "than", but since it does not it is being left out because there is no ambiguity. All the other choices are wrong because you can't use a plural pronoun in the underlined portion when "it" is used to refer to the baseball team later in the sentence.

[money9111]

easy squeezy... A,B,D,E are wrong because they use They and Their... these cannot refer to the Team... therefore it's C