When the high school baseball schedules are released each year, Mountain View’s Chase Terry always circles the Summit games.

After all, it’s the senior’s favorite team to face — and he is not alone.

“I think it is both teams’ favorite game of the year,” Terry said. “We all love that game.”

Summit senior Joe Schutz feels the same way about the friendly rivalry.

“It is fun because we all still play summer ball and are friends with those kids,” Schutz said. “It has been a good rivalry that we go back and forth with.”

When the Storm (12-6 overall, 5-2 Mountain Valley Conference) roll into northeast Bend to face the Cougars (14-4, 3-3) on Tuesday it will likely be the last time that seven members of the 2016 Bend North Little League World Series team (now seniors) compete on the baseball diamond together in high school.

“I’ve been thinking about this game a lot,” said Mountain View’s Aaron Platner. “I think it is going to be a little sad when we are done playing with each other.”

“It never crossed my mind that this would be the last time playing those Mountain View kids,” Schutz said. “I’m excited for it.”

Of the 12 players on the 2016 Bend North team, seven are still playing in their final year of high school baseball: Mountain View’s Blaine Causey, Declan Corrigan, Platner and Terry, and Summit’s Zach Reynolds, Julian Mora and Schutz.

“The Little League World Series really has made this rivalry a little better,” Mora said.

In the summer of 2016, the Bend North Little League team started defeating the West Coast’s top Little League teams and did not stop until it won the Northwest Regional in San Bernardino, California, to earn a trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

While there, they lived the dream of many youth baseball players. They played in front of thousands of fans in the stands and an even bigger television audience, and they played against the best Little League teams from across the globe. Bend North lost a heartbreaker to Tennessee, 3-2, then fell out of contention by losing to Rhode Island, 8-0. The team finished the tournament with a 6-2 win over Italy.

Through it all — the practices, the games, team dinners at coaches’ houses and spending seemingly all their time with one another — a bond that likely never will be broken was made among the seven sixth-graders.

“It was like a family back then,” Terry said. “Every day we were together. Everyone was friends with everyone.”

Sentiment aside, Tuesday’s game is of heightened importance at this stage of the season. A win for the Storm will give them the season sweep of the Cougars, as Summit won the first matchup on April 20, 7-4.

Depending on the outcomes of both teams’ doubleheaders on Saturday (Summit hosts 5-15 West Salem and Mountain View hosts 6-14 McNary), the winner in the final showdown between Mountain View and Summit will get the upper hand in the Mountain Valley Conference standings, along with Bend High and Sprague.

“We are both up there in the standings,” Corrigan said. “Whoever wins is going to get the higher seed in the rankings.”

Still, as the years since the trip to Williamsport keep adding up, it has become increasingly clear how special of a time they had playing baseball together on that magical run to the Little League World Series.

“As I get older and older,” Schutz said, “I think, ‘Wow, that was really crazy.’ ”