The 2008 Fresno State baseball team is no secret to those who follow college athletics or who watch SportsCenter on a daily basis.

The Bulldogs, who entered the NCAA tournament with a 33-27 regular-season record and had to win their conference tourney for an invite, took six straight elimination games to become perhaps the most unlikely College World Series champion in the event’s 61- year history.

So when Bedford was bumped to the losers bracket with a 4-2 loss to Manchester Westside in the New Hampshire District 1 Little League 11- and 12-year-old all-star tournament, coach David Cassidy decided it was only logical to compare the two squads.

After all, Bedford needed to win six straight to put itself in position to win the district.

The locals, with a two-page Sports Illustrated image of Fresno State’s on-the-field celebration hanging in their dugout, won five in a row, including a 17-1 thrashing of Nashua in the losers bracket finale. They averaged 10 runs during that stretch.

But on Saturday, July 19, Manchester North – the same team that gave the boys both losses in the 2007 tournament – handed them a 13-6 championship- game defeat.

“You’d get frustrated if we lost to a team we should have beaten, but honestly … (North) was a good hitting team, and they had a great pitcher going for them today. We just got beat by a better team,” said Cassidy. “I think if we had brought the same bats we did the last five games – and (North’s) pitching had a lot to do with that – we could have played with those guys.

“But I’m proud of these kids, they didn’t get 10-run ruled, and we were close to that a couple times, but they kept fighting.”

In fact, with his squad down 8-0 in the second inning, Cassidy turned to his dugout and asked his players, “Is this how you want your Little League careers to end?”

“No,” came a resounding reply from those wearing the yellow jerseys. “Then get on the fence and support your teammates.”

Bedford responded in the third. After Taylor Grande and John Cassidy reached, Ryan Bliss smacked a three-run homer. North matched those runs, and then in the fourth, Joshua Belz brought Xander Kalil and Joey Morin home on a basesloaded single.

Again, North came back with two runs of its own, and in the top of the sixth, Bedford capped the scoring when Bliss pushed David Cannone across the plate with an RBI double.

Others contributing in the game – and in the tourney – include Chris Viola, Dylan Cowette, John Vanderminden, Christopher Rizos, Matthew Sarro, and Cameron Meservey.

“These were 13 great kids, and I thought we had a chance, I really did,” said Cassidy. “I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this run with them.”