Walking through a small shop Thursday in McCall, Idaho, Julian Mora saw a television airing the Little League World Series and he could not help but to reminisce.

Five summers ago, Mora and his 12 Bend North Little League teammates lived the dream of young baseball players across the world by making it to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the top 16 little league teams in the world gather each summer. This year’s tournament began Thursday.

“It doesn’t feel like it has been that long,” said Mora, now a senior at Summit High. “It hadn’t set in what we did and how cool it was.”

Once the all-star season started that summer, Mora, Zack Reynolds, Sam Renner, Aaron Platner, Blaine Causey, Braeden Intlekofer, Chase Terry, Caleb Carpenter, Isaiah Jensen, Bowen Nelson, Joe Schutz, Declan Corrigan and Evan Ullman, along with coaches Steve Mora, Al Ullman and Joel Jensen formed a bond through baseball that is still felt years later.

“I don’t think a lot of people will ever have that,” said Renner, who no longer plays baseball but has turned into one of Oregon’s top high school golfers for Summit. “It was closer than siblings. It was scary. We were close, close.”

They might have spent more time together during the summer than most families. When they were not playing in tournaments, their days still revolved around baseball. They would practice in the morning and another later in the evening. Sandwiched between the practices were team trips to the river or all going out to share a meal.

“It was a big ask of the players and the parents,” said Steve Mora, the team’s manager. “Everyone was 100% in.”

Two practices a day and weekend tournaments could seem like a grind for some, but for a dozen 12-year-old boys, there was no better way to spend the summer.

“I just enjoyed hanging out with everybody,” said Platner, now a star pitcher for Mountain View. “Spending time with your best friends is the best thing.”

It turns out, winning baseball games was pretty fun too and Bend North did a lot of that.

The run to the Little League World Series was not a complete shock to those on the team. The summers leading up to the world series run were spent traveling across the northwest trying to get a sense of how they stacked up against the other teams in the region.

“To us it wasn’t surprising,” said Reynolds. “We knew we put in the work and that was the goal all along. That was the goal for the past two or three years.”

But at the Northwest Regional held in San Bernardino, California, the goal nearly fell a step short. Bend North had to win three elimination games to reach the championship game and a rematch against Lynnwood Pacific — the team that had beaten them in the tournament opener. The second time around, Bend North won 5-1.

“We had to play every day to get back,” said Julian Mora. “We just rallied and came back in the championship. That is the tournament that defined our team the most.”

In many ways, the win in San Bernardino was the apex of the whole run. Nothing beat celebrating on the pitcher’s mound, then running around the stadium flying the Bend North Little League flag.

They had realized their hard work had paid off and they reached their goal of making it to Williamsport.

“Each stage got a little bigger and we performed at our best,” said Renner.

A week later, the team was on the East Coast in what Steve Mora described as “Disneyland on steroids.”

Once in Williamsport and on the Little League campus, the players not yet in high school are treated as royalty. Crowds of over 100 people attend their practices, adults and older kids come up and ask players for autographs and photos and major news outlets are asking for interviews.

“You are famous for a week,” said Renner.

All that before even stepping on the field. Once on the field — a field that Reynolds said could only be topped by Major League spring training fields in terms of quality — they were playing in front of crowds exceeding 10,000 people, playing in front of a national television audience.

When the game started, the team was able to zone out the noise and focus on the game.

“It was different than playing in front of 40 parents,” said Renner. “It is easy to get distracted. But you can’t get distracted. You need to stay focused and let it bother you after the game.”

On the field, the team lost a heartbreaker to Tennessee 3-2, then fell out of contention by losing to Rhode Island 8-0. Bend North would finish the tournament with a win over Italy 6-2.

It was the experiences, not the games that stood out to most during the time in Williamsport. They shared a dorm with a team from South Korea, where neither team spoke the other’s language. But by the end of the week, the two teams had figured out ways to communicate through nonverbal cues and Google translate.

The two teams from different countries exchanged mementos and gear.

“One of my favorite memories was meeting other players from out of the country and understanding their culture,” Platner said.

Steve Mora saw it as an important lesson for preteens to experience.

“It was fun to see the kids get outside the Bend bubble and see that kids are kids and baseball players are baseball players,” he said.

Now, in 2021, the players that made up the World Series team are entering their final year of high school. Some of the area’s top athletes, not just in baseball.

Twice this spring, Reynolds and Platner were in pitcher’s duals when Summit and Mountain View met on the diamond. When the Storm and Cougars meet on the diamond, it is like a mini reunion.

There are lessons that have carried over to today. They learned about the sacrifice it takes to accomplish a goal, how to work together and compete and how to play fearless.

“I don’t put any pressure on myself anymore,” said Platner. “I Played on ESPN, had those big moments. That transfers over today.”

Five years does not seem like that long ago, but soon they will head off into their post-high school lives. But what the little league team from North Bend was able to accomplish in 2016 will be a tall accomplishment to top.

“I told them,” Steve Mora said, “you won’t understand the gravity of the experience until 10 to 20 years down the road.”