There's also teamwork, the mastering of the fundamentals and the importance of doing the little things right—all of them combined are key factors in creating a successful team.

The Saratoga High School frosh-soph baseball had all of that this year—and some talent, too. And the result was the first frosh-soph baseball championship in the school's history.

"We had talent, but more importantly we had great team chemistry, a deep desire to compete and we had a lot of fun," said Saratoga head coach Gary Berman. "Of course, winning is always more fun than losing, but, strange as it may sound, we spoke very little about winning.

"We focused on and practiced the little things that give a baseball team the opportunity to be successful—things like getting our lead-off hitter on base each inning, pitchers getting first-pitch strikes, anticipating and exploiting our opponents' mistakes, not striking out but putting the ball in play and trying our hardest on each and every pitch."

The Falcons won 16 of 18 games to take the title in the El Camino Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. Their only losses came against Monta Vista (6-5) and Homestead (5-3), but beat each club two of three times in league play. Saratoga beat its opponents by 10 or more runs seven times and scored in double digits in 10 of its 18 games.

Scott Newberry starred for the Falcons and the pitcher-infielder was selected as the division's Most Valuable Player for his efforts.

Infielders Augie Lagemann and Eric Finnegan, pitcher-infielder Bo Nielsen and Alex Lagemann, who played pitcher, catcher and infield during the year, were all selected to the all-league first team.

Claiming all-league second team honors were catcher Scott Darchuk, outfielder Joey Pollard-Vithanage and pitcher-infielder Kevin Sieczkarek.

Berman pointed out, though, that "this team was fortunate that it didn't have to rely on one or two star players to win games."

"You never knew who was going to step up and get the clutch two-out hit or make the big defensive play, but you knew, you absolutely knew that someone was going to do it," he added. "Our players knew it, too, and when one of their teammates did something important, they were genuinely happy for him. This unselfish, team attitude was a hallmark of this team and one of the things I'm most proud of."