AUBURN - What the Auburn Nationals have accomplished thus far has been pretty amazing. Now they want to take it further.

The 9-and 10-year-old Pony League District V All- Star champions went 5-0 in the double elimination tournament by out-scoring their opponents 46-9. They will be traveling to Elmira on Saturday to play a Buffalo-area team from District II in the ten-team District Tournament, which will be single elimination and will wrap up on Monday.

“(The District V championship) felt great,” Nationals second-year head coach Steve Pinchak said. “We don't cut these kids a lot of slack in practices. We don't torture them, but we don't allow them to get lackadaisical We keep them in game conditions, we don't mess around.”

Even with a good work ethic, Pinchak has three keys to success that any Nationals player can tell you off the top of their head - have fun, have good sportsmanship and hustle and play hard. Sounds like a good recipe for winning baseball at any level. According to assistant coach Lane Duger, this year's all-star team would have pleased Auburn's most beloved baseball fan.

“This is the Leo Pinckney dream team,” Duger said. “I knew Leo and I know that he loved children and these kids are great. There are no attitudes on this team, they all come to play and have great sportsmanship.”

As for the fun aspect - it's clearly evident in all 14 players, even in practices.

“This is awesome,” said pitcher Tommy Herbert, who hit a home run in the championship game against Geneva Red and pitched a one-hitter in another tournament game. “This is the first year that we've gone all the way. I love it.”

Even for the player who lives in a baseball home, going to the district championship is exciting. Justin Valentino, son of Moravia varsity baseball coach Rich Valentino, is the bat boy for the Blue Devils in the spring and has been playing baseball since he was 5 years old. One of the highlights for him was when the team was introduced in the middle of the fourth inning of an Auburn Doubledays game last weekend.

“It felt great to go out there on the field during the game,” said the 9-year-old Valentino. “It's been a lot of fun, playing with my friends and winning games.”

With talented players such as Valentino, who shares pitching duties with Herbert and also hit a huge home run in the tournament, Nick Petrosino, who has earned a .667 batting average in the tournament, leadoff hitter Austin Duger and Jack Burgmaster, who closed out the championship game in his first pitching appearance and allowed only one hit - the Nationals have a good shot to take their success further.

The coaching dynamic also has something to do with the Nationals' success this season. Pinchak, Duger and other assistant coach Frank Petrosino coach the same Pony League team, Auburn Firefighters, during the regular season.

“We've coached together for six years and those guys are great coaches,” Duger said. “After Austin was called to play on the all-star team, Steve asked me to coach. I knew with the combination of talent, philosophy and ethics that we'd do well. There's a good chemistry on this team. Those guys live to coach and coach to live.”