The numbers, as is often the case, tell the story. Eleven consecutive wins, including two against a Little League World Series qualifier that returned five players. Eleven home runs and .402 team batting average at the region tournament. Just two errors in five games. A 1.50 team earned run average, and a 45-8 run differential.

A trip to the Little League World Series.

But in order to understand the full story of the 2006 South Lake Charles (Louisiana) Little League all-star team, one must consider another set of numbers. A Category 3 storm, the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record. 115 mile per hour winds. $11.3 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast. 90% of local residents evacuated, with most unable to return for three weeks, and some still displaced nearly a year later.

To say that Hurricane Rita altered the lives of the South Lake Charles Little League all-star team and their families when it reached landfall in September 2005 is to state the obvious -- just as Rita impacted the town of Groves across the Texas border, and as Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast community of D'Iberville, Mississippi, the previous month.

But all three communities, like hundreds of others along the Gulf Coast, soon began the slow, agonizing, arduous recovery process. Many would need to rebuild or repair physical structures, but equally critical was the need to reclaim a semblance of normal. More than one member of South Lake Charles' team indicated that after returning home and surveying the damage, among the first tasks was to locate their baseball glove.

The Road to Williamsport beckoned.

"These guys have been dreaming of going to Williamsport since they were five years old," said South Lake Charles manager Josh Corman. "I thought from the time that they were nine that they had a chance because they won every big tournament they entered."

On the biggest stage the team had yet encountered, with ESPN's cameras focused on Marvin Norcross Stadium in Waco, Texas, South Lake Charles again came out on top. The Louisiana champions used a third inning home run by catcher Tanner Hebert to edge D'Iberville Little League, 1-0, in the Southwestern Region championship game.

With the win, South Lake Charles returned to the Little League World Series for the third time in the league's history.

South Lake Charles pitcher Nicholas Zaunbrecher and Tyler Quave, his Mississippi counterpart, were both stellar in the championship game. Zaunbrecher surrendered just three hits, struck out eight, and needed only 70 pitches in a complete game effort. Quave, a powerful right-hander, struck out nine batters while running his tournament total to a Southwestern Region record 32 strikeouts.

Hebert's home run, his third of the tournament, came on a letter-high fastball, and landed just beyond the 205-foot marker on the center field fence. It was one of only three hits allowed on the evening by Quave.

"He's a tough pitcher," said Corman of the D'Iberville right-hander. "We knew he would be hard to score on."

"We needed some timely hits, and didn't produce them," said D'Iberville manager Darren Quave. "We figured we'd need to score three or four runs, and the bats just didn't come around."

D'Iberville's biggest threat came in the fourth inning, when the younger Quave drilled a leadoff double and Jacob Sweeny legged out an infield hit to put runners at the corners. But Zaunbrecher escaped the threat by registering a strikeout, then backhanding a hard chopper back through the middle that seemed destined for center field. Zaunbrecher threw to second baseman Matt Gallier for a force out, and Gallier's hard, off-balance relay to first just nipped the batter and prevented the tying run from scoring.

"That was the play of the game," said Corman. "We were going to concede the run from third, but it's a game of inches, and (when) they hit it back to the pitcher, we were able to turn it.

"In practice, we play a game with 18 outs, and if an error is made, we start over," added the Louisiana manager. "That kind of work pays off in a game."

D'Iberville's final threat came in the sixth. Taylor Hardy singled and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt, then South Lake Charles elected to put the go-ahead run on base by walking Tyler Quave intentionally. Zaunbrecher closed out the game with a short fly ball to right field and a groundout to send the Pelican State's champion to the Little League World Series for the second consecutive year. Lafayette Little League had defeated South Lake Charles in the 2005 state championship game en route to South Williamsport, before South Lake Charles returned the favor at the exact same point of the 2006 international tournament.

South Lake Charles reached the region championship game with a 9-2 victory over Texas West champion Lubbock Western Little League. Pitcher Paul Beglis retired the first thirteen batters he faced, and did not allow a ball out of the infield until the sixth inning against an offense that scored 43 runs in its prior four games at the region tournament. The Louisiana champions built a 9-0 lead before Lubbock Western scored a pair of unearned runs in the final inning.

"Their pitching was really solid," said Texas West coach Jerry Brown. "He kind of manhandled us early, and then we came to life a bit in the last inning. He wasn't overpowering, but he was a crafty pitcher."

South Lake Charles jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Gabe Von Rosenburg's double skipped over the left field fence and drove in Hebert, and Tre' Goodley followed with a triple to right field. In the fourth, Von Rosenburg capped a four-run rally with a two-run double that scored Hebert and Beglis.

The Louisiana champions added three more in the fifth inning, before Lubbock Western broke up Beglis' no-hitter with three singles in the sixth.

"Paul just went up there and did what he does," said Corman of his pitcher's effort. "(Hebert, the South Lake Charles catcher) called his own game today and did a great job."

Corman had called South Lake Charles' pitches through the team's district and state tournament victories. Hebert and Timothy Cutrera, the two primary Louisiana catchers, had been calling pitches in the team's scrimmages, and though the stakes increased as his team progressed deeper into the international tournament, Corman decided to hand over the reigns during the first game at Waco.

"I called the first two innings (of Louisiana's 11-1 opening game victory over Shorthorn Little League)," explained Corman at the Little League World Series. "It was going well, we were hitting the ball well, and I just said 'You know what, I really think you can do what I'm doing. If you can't, if you need help, look over to me and I'll take over.' Since then, they've only maybe looked over once.

"If we're really trying to develop kids, then I'm not playing the videogame and calling all the shots," he added. "I want them to be able to do it, where they understand how to call the signs and everything. To play (at higher levels), you're gonna have to call your own game, so it's a good place to start now."

Shorthorn, the New Mexico champion, managed just three hits in what was the first of three consecutive pool victories by South Lake Charles. The perennial Louisiana champions -- 2006 marked South Lake Charles' thirteenth state championship in a 16 year span -- rang up double-digit runs and hits in each win, and six different players launched a collective ten home runs as South Lake Charles scored in 12 of its 15 offensive innings.

"I knew we could hit all along," said Corman, whose team batted .446 in pool competition. "We have fourteen players on the roster that are capable of hitting the ball out of the field."

The hitting was backed by stellar pitching, as Beglis tossed a three-hitter in the opening round win over Shorthorn, three pitchers combined on a nine strikeout, seven-hit effort against Mountain Home (Arkansas) Little League the next morning, and Zaunbrecher carried a perfect game into the fifth inning against Colorado's Academy Little League in the final pool matchup.

"Louisiana's been taking care of business," observed D'Iberville's Darren Quave before the title game. "They've got a real solid team."

D'Iberville was among a quartet of other entrants that also secured the two pool wins necessary to advance to the tournament's second stage. Tyler Quave overpowered Northeast Oklahoma Little League in a 10-0 no-hitter on the tourney's first day, then helped the Mississippi champions rebound from an 18-5 thrashing at the hands of Lubbock Western with a two-hitter in a 6-2 victory over Groves National (Texas East). Quave struck out thirteen Groves batters in what amounted to a must-win game for D'Iberville, and closed out the game strongly by retiring the final eight batters.

"We had to win this game to get back the confidence that Texas West took away from us," added D'Iberville coach Scotty Jurich.

The win moved the Mississippi champions into a semifinal round matchup with Mountain Home, and D'Iberville's early 9-2 lead was narrowed to a single run before catcher Blake Sprague picked an Arkansas runner off third base on a first-and-third double steal situation to end the game.

D'Iberville reliever Drake Lamey moved to the mound during a four-run Arkansas third inning, and after ending that rally, allowed only two runs over the remainder of the game.

"The Arkansas team battled the whole game," remarked Darren Quave after the game. "Drake Lamey kind of saved the day for us."

"We were having to pitch by committee," said Jurich. "They fought back, little by little. Drake gave us (four) good innings."

The next evening, Tyler Quave gave his team six good innings, but the number that told the story that night was the "one" provided by Hebert's home run. It marked the margin of victory, and also the number of teams still standing in the tournament. It also capped a memorable chapter for a team that had faced extraordinary circumstances.

South Lake Charles, like its championship game opponent, spent weeks displaced in the aftermath of a natural disaster, but was now on its way to a new locale: South Williamsport. Less than a year removed from a nightmare, and en route to destination Dream Come True.

Linescores:

Pool Play Game 1	1	2	3	4	5	6	7		R	H	E
Groves National (Texas East)	2	1	0	0	2	1			6	12	1
Lubbock Western (Texas West)	1	0	1	0	0	0			2	3	1
Pool Play Game 2
Mountain Home (Arkansas)	2	0	0	3	0	0			5	7	3
Academy (Colorado)	0	0	0	0	0	3			3	3	2
Pool Play Game 3
D'Iberville (Mississippi)	2	5	0	3					10	10	0
Northeast Oklahoma (Oklahoma)	0	0	0	0					0	0	3
Pool Play Game 4
Shorthorn (New Mexico)	0	1	0	0	0				1	3	1
South Lake Charles (Louisiana)	0	2	2	6	1				11	11	1
Pool Play Game 5
Mountain Home (Arkansas)	0	0	4	0	0	0			4	7	0
South Lake Charles (Louisiana)	4	1	4	3	0	x			12	10	0
Pool Play Game 6
Northeast Oklahoma (Oklahoma)	0	0	0	1					1	1	3
Groves National (Texas East)	5	3	0	3					11	9	0
Pool Play Game 7
Shorthorn (New Mexico)	1	1	2	2	0	0			6	9	0
Academy (Colorado)	0	0	0	0	3	2			5	4	1
Pool Play Game 8
Lubbock Western (Texas West)	0	3	5	3	2	5			18	17	2
D'Iberville (Mississippi)	2	1	0	2	0	0			5	11	2
Pool Play Game 9
Lubbock Western (Texas West)	1	5	5	0	0	6			17	16	0
Northeast Oklahoma (Oklahoma)	3	1	0	2	0	2			8	9	6
Pool Play Game 10
D'Iberville (Mississippi)	1	0	2	0	0	3			6	8	1
Groves National (Texas East)	0	0	1	1	0	0			2	2	3
Pool Play Game 11
South Lake Charles (Louisiana)	4	0	1	4	3				12	12	0
Academy (Colorado)	0	0	0	0	1				1	2	1
Pool Play Game 12
Shorthorn (New Mexico)	0	0	0	2	0	2			4	4	1
Mountain Home (Arkansas)	0	1	3	0	1	x			5	6	0
Quarterfinal Round
Lubbock Western (Texas West)	0	0	0	1	0	0	5		6	6	2
Groves National (Texas East)	0	1	0	0	0	0	3		4	5	1
Semifinal Round
Mountain Home (Arkansas)	0	2	4	0	0	2			8	8	2
D'Iberville (Mississippi)	2	7	0	0	0	x			9	12	1
Semifinal Round
Lubbock Western (Texas West)	0	0	0	0	0	2			2	3	3
South Lake Charles (Louisiana)	2	0	0	4	3	x			9	13	1
Championship Game
D'Iberville (Mississippi)	0	0	0	0	0	0			0	3	1
South Lake Charles (Louisiana)	0	0	1	0	0	x			1	3	0

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