NATCHEZ &045; Nobody is living in the past.

Nope. Not even Cole Mann, who can almost nearly recite the order in which the Natchez 12-year-old All-Stars clubbed six homers in a 20-4 pounding of the Brookhaven Nationals on Wednesday for the North sub-district title.

It is in the past as the All-Stars host McComb at 7 p.m. today in a best-of-three district championship series.

But it still doesn’t make the smiles go away.

&uot;Five in a row hit a home run,&uot; said Mann, who belted a solo home run in the ninth-run fifth. &uot;Aaron White hit a mammoth three-run home run, and it ended with Cody Floyd &045; and me in the middle.

&uot;I’ve never seen that before. Everybody just kept their head in and hit the ball. They said no Dixie Youth team has ever done that.&uot;

The team’s own version of home run derby was still the topic of discussion at practice on Thursday, but the general consensus is on how much the team has improved from a season ago.

Most of this team was part of a Major League All-Star team that won the sub-district in the old format by beating Franklin County, Pine Hills and Claiborne County &045; programs with smaller numbers &045; before losing its first two games at district.

Now a year older and better, the All-Stars won the sub-district against better competition while not losing a game in the double-elimination tournament. And they finished with perhaps the biggest exclamation point imaginable.

&uot;I don’t know what happened &045; I guess we just got into a groove,&uot; said Caleb Johnson, who also homered in that game. &uot;Some of them haven’t hit home runs in a long time. We got tired of that (coming out to celebrate), but we were too excited to notice it until we got back in.&uot;

The 20 runs indicated the bats kept getting better each game in the tournament after the team started out with a 4-1 win over that same Brookhaven Nationals club. The coaches had a sneaky suspicion things might explode like they did in the later games in the sub-district tournament &045; even though the team didn’t score that many runs last year.

&uot;We picked up a few more kids who didn’t make it last year,&uot; Natchez coach Reagan White said. &uot;We have experience in the field and got the experience of going to district last year. This group has been strong all the way through since coach-pitch, especially when they combined the two (Major) leagues.

&uot;(And) we were driving 72 miles to sub-district, and everybody else was driving 15. We put some time in on the road.&uot;

Many of those who went yard were holdovers from last year &045; Hunter Russ, Audie Crosby and Cody Floyd also left the building as the team finished with 14 hits in the five-inning contest.

&uot;I was hoping we’d have a coming-out game before district, and we timed it just right,&uot; Reagan White said. &uot;It’s always been one of our strengths. It was a short field, and two might have made it, but the others would have been out of any park. They were in the trees.&uot;

But to shift to the present, the All-Stars need the pitching and defense against a McComb team that steamrolled through the South sub-district to get to this point. The staff will lean on four pitchers &045; Floyd, R.J. Fleming, Colin Dollar and Aaron White.

The four adhere to a philosophy of keeping it low, a tactic that may come in handy for a McComb team that can hit the longball as well.

&uot;We preach keeping it low,&uot; Reagan White said. &uot;We haven’t really decided (who will pitch). It’ll probably be between Cody or Colin. They’re a big team with some hard pitchers. They’re talking about 68-70 mph pitchers. That’s the word on them &045; big and strong.&uot;