AUBURN - It has been one fine season for the Auburn Pop Warner Junior Pee Wee team.

With a 4-2 record in their conference, both coach Tony Bisogno and his players are proud of the way they've played thus far.

“These guys have all worked hard,” Bisogno said. “This is a big commitment, we've been practicing since August and they have all been here working hard to make this a really good season.”

Many players on the team point to their ability to work on the field together as one solid unit, whether it be on offense or defense.

“We've played together pretty good this season,” Jack Hogan, 10, said. “We've been blocking and playing defense really good and that has been awesome and our offense has been really good too.”

The team skills earned them a place in the Junior Pee-Wee championship playoffs and they got started with a good victory in the first round.

“We beat Sherwood 21-12,” Bisogno said. “That was a good game and everyone played really well.”

And the team was riding high after the win.

“We were feeling really good,” Matt Faiola, 10, said. “We were really happy and just ready to play the next game.”

The next game against Fayetteville-Manlius would come down to the final seconds and find Auburn on the losing end.

“That came down to F-M winning 19-18,” Bisogno said. “We were up and we got the ball back on a fumble and then a holding call brought us back and then they got the ball back and ran a 70 yard pass play and got the touchdown with less than two minutes left and they got the win.”

With the game coming down to just one point to end the championship run, the team was understandably upset, but took things in stride.

“We had a lot of fun,” Mike Chirco, 10, said. “It was tough to lose by one point. We felt pretty good after we played our first game and I think we played pretty good against FM, so we lost, but we had fun and it was cool to play as well as we did.”

But the season will not end there for Auburn.

Sunday the team will travel to Chittenango to compete in the New York State Empire Classic Tournament, representing the Central New York Conference.

This is an opportunity that has really raised the spirits on the team.

“They were a little upset after losing to F-M,” Bisogno said. “But they are all doing good now and they are ready to go.”

The team has been hard at work for the past week, striving to elevate their game to a whole new level.

“We've been practicing a lot,” Mike Charles, 10, said. “We've been working on learning new plays and getting ready for this, we're all pretty excited and we've been practicing really hard to get ready.”

Auburn will be squaring off against Oneida.

Bisogno said that to some extent, Oneida is an unknown team to Auburn, but after all the hard work of this season and the last week, he is confident his team will put in a strong showing no matter what.

“They've been practicing hard,” Bisogno said. “They have really worked hard all season and this should be a good game.”

This chance to keep the season rolling on a little bit longer has the team excited and eager to hit the field in Chittenango.

“We're all excited to be here,” Charles said. “This is the farthest we have ever made it and we're all really excited to have this chance to play.”

Bisogno said that is Auburn loses it will end their season, but if the win, Auburn will advance to play the winner of the Western Conference and if they win there Auburn will earn the opportunity to go on to the states.

And the team is confident they have a good chance of making it.

“We all think we have a really good chance,” Hogan said. “We want to go there and win so we can keep going and we've been working hard all week to get ready and I think we have a really good chance.”