Officially, they are the Mountaineers. But that name doesn’t sound menacing enough for arguably the best bunch of pint-size baseball players this country has ever produced. These guys are ruthless, and have become an unstoppable baseball machine in the month of August. And now they’re about to test themselves against the world’s best.

The team of 11- and 12-year-olds from Little Mountain Little League absolutely mowed down the competition at the 2010 Canadian Little League Championships in Ancaster, Ontario, last week. As a result, they’ve earned the right to represent this country in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at the Little League Baseball World Series, from August 20 to 29.

No Canadian team has ever won it all in Williamsport, but it’s unlikely any team sporting the maple leaf has ever gone into the tournament on the kind of roll this Little Mountain crew is on these days.

“The kids are playing really, really well,” Little Mountain coach Frank Soper told the Straight by telephone before loading his team on a bus for the five-hour trip to central Pennsylvania. “Our pitching has been fantastic, our defence has been superb, and the bats—well, they speak for themselves. We whacked a bunch of runs in over the past week.”

Did they ever. In five straight wins in the round-robin at the nationals, the Mountaineers outscored their opponents 69-11, with their closest game being a 10-2 laugher against Ontario. On championship weekend, the Little Mountain little leaguers rolled to 7-1 and 13-1 victories. Toss in an 8-0 win over last year’s national champions—Hastings Little League—in the provincial final back on August 1 in New Westminster, and this big deal of a little league team has polished off its competition by a combined score of 92-13 this month. This is supposed to be the best of the best at this level, but it’s become rather apparent that one team stands alone at this age level in Canada this year. And now we’re about to find out if being this good in this country can translate to something even greater, as the little leaguers from Little Mountain have been lumped in a group with teams from Panama, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan (they open on Saturday [August 21] against Panama).

As a province that has produced major leaguers like Larry Walker, Justin Morneau, Jason Bay, Ryan Dempster, Rich Harden, and Jeff Francis, British Columbia has put itself on the baseball map. And this Little Mountain team appears to be part of the next wave of B.C.–born players who could very well make their mark on the game at higher levels.

The Mountaineers are the sixth straight team from this province to represent Canada in Williamsport—following in the spike marks of Whalley in 2005 and 2006, White Rock in 2007 and 2008, and Hastings a year ago.

“I think it goes back to where the bar has been set by teams like Whalley, Coquitlam, and White Rock, and the rest of us have decided that we better pick it up a notch with our programs,” Soper explains of the emergence of B.C. as a baseball power. “After we finish our house league and all-stars, we’ve got a summer program, we’ve got fall ball, and then typically we take a month or two off and we’re into the gym, working on strength and conditioning and some other aspects of the game. Back here [in Ontario], it’s not played nine or 10 months like we do it in B.C.”

Some may shudder at the idea of preteens devoting that much time to one pursuit, but Soper suggests that it has to be that way if teams want success. And it’s hard to argue with Little Mountain’s results so far this summer.

“Most programs shut down for a couple of months, like we do, so those arms do get a couple months break, and then we build them back up,” he says. “I think it’s a good thing. The kids that play at this level—and in order to compete with the likes of White Rock and Whalley you have to—they want to play at this level. We knew this team was special, and we’ve been working on our program for several years.”

As good and as focused on winning as this group appears to be, the Little Mountain coaching staff hasn’t lost sight of the fact that these are still kids playing a game that’s supposed to be fun. With that in mind, Soper says, it was important to ensure that every one of his players contributed to the win at the nationals.

“We’ve got 10 pitchers and we were able to get all 10 of them into this tournament, and we made sure that all of our kids got a Canadian championship hit,” he explains, adding that seven different players on the team belted home runs in Ancaster. “They’re having the time of their lives, hanging out at the ball park, enjoying the whole baseball experience. These kids are very confident, but they’re mature and respectful of everybody else. We’ve plugged in all the right aspects with this group.”

Traditionally, Canadian teams have not started well in Williamsport—the 2007 White Rock team was the last to win its Little League Baseball World Series opener, and the 2005 team from Whalley was the last to win more than one game at the tournament. There are no guarantees in sports—particularly when assessing the chances of 12-year-olds—but if the results of the past month are any indication, it’s hard to imagine that the Little Mountain little leaguers don’t stand a chance of scaling the steepest hill of all. They are Mountaineers, after all.

Jeff Paterson is a talk show host on Vancouver’s all-sports radio, Team 1040. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/patersonjeff/.