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Century Community College Soaking In Trip To NJCAA World Series

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. (WCCO) -- They have earned a chance to play for a national title. The Century Community College baseball team out of White Bear Lake is back.

As Mike Max reports, it's been a winding journey for the program and it will be a long journey to the next game.

Dwight Kotila is taking his favorite ride on his golf cart through the woods.

"It's just a nice scenic area. You get to kind of get the calmness before the storm," Kotila said.

The storm is actually serene: A baseball field carved out of the woods, and a team that knows itself.

"The character of this team? I'd say we're scrappy. We're just a gritty team and we know how to win. We string hits together well and we play good team baseball," Axel Twenge said.

For 25 years, there was no baseball program at Century Community College. In 2011, they brought it back and for the second time in just five years, they're playing in the World Series.

They did it by winning a region title. They did it with a new, but embraced baseball tradition. And they are doing it because they believe.

"Seeing the guys and the joy on their face when they won that region championship and seeing the excitement in them, especially this year's group we only have one returning player from last year's team so everyone is experiencing it for the first time," Kotila said.

The next stop for this team is a 20-hour bus ride to Durham, North Carolina, to play in the ball park, the one that "Bull Durham" made famous. And with that long ride, they will watch that movie on their way.

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