At the end of the travel baseball season for the 10U Gainesville Cannons, all roads led to Cooperstown.

While the Virginia Generals, the Cannons' top local rival, stormed the same upstate New York city the same weekend to win a smaller tournament, the Cannons found themselves lumped into a field of 92 teams from across the country.

Recounting the competition, Gainesville manager Greg Michna explained that a certain number of teams show up each year just for the experience and another, much slimmer number, arrive with winning the trophy as priorities No. 1, 2 and 3.

Lump the Cannons (33-7 overall) somewhere in between.

"The kids came up there loose and ready to go," recalled Michna last Friday during an interview at Uno's restaurant in Gainesville.

Sure, the Cannons' talent and work ethos catapulted them into the top 20 of the tournament held June 19-25. In fact, the team became the first of any Cannons team in program history to go undefeated in the Old Dominion Baseball League during the season, racking up a 15-0 league record en route to becoming local champions.

But were they marching around with military-like precision during their pre-game warm ups or acting snooty to lesser teams behind the scenes? Not really, according to Michna. He considered Gainesville's experience as a talented team there to have fun and give the top contenders a run for their money whenever possible.

At first, he noticed some of his players becoming a bit nervous during opening ceremonies as they would follow each other around, "ask a lot of questions" and look for their teammates under a tent where the other 91 teams also congregated. Once the skills competition got under way though, A.J. Prudhum broke the ice for Gainesville by clocking in a top-10 finish in the "Road Runner" event against 91 other runners.

That led to a Sunday morning game against a team from Tennessee, the Columbia Roaddogs, which resulted in an 8-3 Cannons victory, setting the template for a dominate pool performance.

Pitchers Jake Brown, Chase DeGrood and Jake Michna threw a combined six innings with Brown tossing the opening three while DeGrood and Michna closed.

"They were throwing strikes, they were hitting their spots and they showed under pressure they could throw a change up," said the manager.

Gainesville topped most of their competition in the opening pool round, defeating five teams while dropping only one to Team Phenom from California, a top-10 squad.

"They come to win that tournament," said Michna.

While the Gainesville organization generally eschews what Michna called "moral victories," he said for the first time in his coaching career, he recognized the importance of one such "victory" without actually tallying up a W in the scorebook. In pool play, Gainesville was the only team to actually take the California squad to all six innings, losing 9-3. The team used the 10-run slaughter rule against the rest of its competition.

Michna particularly highlighted Gainesville's pool-play game against the Houston Sox, coached by former Major League Baseball player Charlie Hayes. Mason LePlante picked up the win for the Cannons with three innings pitched while DeGrood smacked a go-ahead RBI double in the third inning to clinch the victory.

In the next round of the tournament, the Cannons also pulled out a close 7-6 match against the San Diego Stars (South), an organization typically known as one of the best in the country. Gainesville came back from an early deficit with key hits from Reese Varley, Brown, and Michael Fyvie. William Heltibridle also made an "ESPN highlight" type of play, according to Michna, with a diving stab in right-centerfield on a line drive. Austin Ricketts flashed his own defensive skills by pegging out a running at third base with a laser-like throw from right field for an inning-ending play that prevents runners from ending up in scoring position.

Gainesville finally bowed out of the tournament June 23 against the Carolina Twins, a team that had every ounce of emotion behind it. Their second baseman woke up that morning to find his 67-year-old grandfather, James "J.J." Walker, an umpire at the tournament, died next to him in his sleep.

"That team was playing for that kid and that family," said Michna, recounting the Cannons' 14-2 loss.

To that point in the tournament, Gainesville had allowed one home run in seven games. Carolina clocked four round-trippers in that final match.

Taking the game in stride, the Cannons all signed a baseball and presented it to the young athlete afterward.

Thinking back upon the season as a whole, Michna had only adulation for his players. The boys went undefeated in two season tournaments, won the league title, and nine players from the team hit at or above .300. Brown led with a .545 average while Varley came in not far behind at .505. Varley and Brown hit two home runs each while DeGrood, Heltibridle and Austin Kirby all smacked one of their own during the season.

Among everyday starters, Jake Michna led the Cannons in ERA at 1.53 while Brown registered a team-high 33 strike outs. Michna, DeGrood, Varley and LaPlante all had at least 20 Ks on the season too.

"We could see our kids developing," said the manager Michna. "We have athletes."