NATCHEZ — If you ask Geoff Flattmann, tournament ball is a secret to future success.

In glancing at the 2015 MHSAA Class 1A State Championship Cathedral Green Wave team, Flattmann sees players who have grown up playing tournament ball, reaffirming his belief in that competitive form of play. Three years ago, Flattmann took a group of 9-year-olds and started the Bayou Bandits.

“We did this years ago because if you look at Cathedral’s championship team, every player in the starting lineup played travel ball consistently from a young age,” Flattmann said. “I didn’t think it was a coincidence.”

Flattmann put together a team of local ball players, mixing kids from several different schools.

“We’ve got kids from Delta Charter, Cathedral, Centreville, McLaurin, Vidalia, Monterey and Trinity,” Flattmann said. “Having kids from eight different schools isn’t so bad.”

Transitioning to tournament ball from Dixie Youth hasn’t been the smoothest, though. Dealing with changes like being able to take leads off the bases, having to catch the third strike and many other subtleties weren’t as difficult adjusting to as the pure competitive nature of tournament ball. Since moving up to the 11-year-old division last August, the team has compiled a 24-30 record.

“We’ve never gotten first,” Flattmann said. “We can make deep runs in tournaments, but then we run out of bullets. We’ve talked to a couple of teams in these big tournaments, and we’ll ask, ‘How’d you get your team?’ And they’ll tell us they had tryouts with 300 kids. We have nine players, and they’re from this area, so we’re up against some pretty darn good teams.”

Success has been had, however, with the team coming off of a fifth place finish out of a 46-team USSSA Louisiana State Tournament in Zachary and Baton Rouge last weekend. In competing in United States Specialty Sports Association, the Bayou Bandits have two second-place finishes to their credit since January, including a second place finish at the Tiger Town showdown which earned them rings.

Paxton Junkin, who is a seventh grade catcher for the Bayou Bandits, said he likes playing tournament ball for the challenge, and enjoys it even more when the team puts together strong showings in tournaments.

“It’s hard to explain it because our team, we just played our game and did what we needed to do in that Louisiana tournament,” Junkin said.

Flattmann plans to finish his 11-year-old tournament team experience with a trip to Dallas on July 7 for the USSSA World Series. Along with playing, he plans on taking his team to Six Flags and a Texas Rangers game.

“We want to learn the game, but it’s less about baseball than it is about the experience,” Flattmann said.