Fife, Milton, Edgewood, the pretty-much bordering King County communities combined to make up a championship girls 9-10 age Little League all stars softball team this 2007 season.

"We are pretty much the Fife, Milton, Edgewood area, but we also have some that are from unincorporated Auburn," said manager Kurt Schwan, who himself lives in unincorporated Auburn, which is really the Federal Way area, by Jovita Boulevard and Five Mile Lake.

"It is a big area in size, but it is spread out. There are not a whole lot of residents. It is good that we could compete with the Kents and Auburns."

How good were these F-M-E all stars this season?

In the game for all the good stuff -- to go to the state tourney representing District 10 -- F-M-E beat Auburn/Tahoma, 21-11, in the championship of the Little League All Stars 9-10s district softball tournament at the South King County Ball Fields Friday.

"State, yeah," said Victoria Berg, opening up her hands after pitching a great game for the fired-up winners.

These F-M-E all-stars, aptly named the "Fireballs," came out on fire. They matched A/T's one run scored in the top of the first inning, and then some. F-M-E scored six runs in the bottom half of the first to lead 6-1.

The F-M-E scoring in the first came via Miranda Carrillo's lead-off walk, Miranda Richardson reaching base on a first base fielding error, Berg's base on balls, Courtney Kilcup's single, Ali Roselli's single, Claire Smith's double, Carillo's single.

After a scorless second for both club's, A/T scored five in the top of the third to prove that those six runs would be huge to keep F-M-E ahead and with that edge that comes from being in the lead in a game comes confidence. So, the score was 8-6, F-M-E, after two and 11-8, after three as each scored a couple and three runs respectively, with F-M-E in the lead by three.

But then F-M-E scored but one run in the bottom of the fourth to make it 12-8. And A/T butted in with three runs in their top half of the fifth to make it a scant, one-run lead at 12-11 for F-M-E.

But no worries, mates, as F-M-E answered that call of competitiveness by A/T with a glorious amount of luck and good eyes. In other words, they "walked" to victory. The A/T pitcher had a hard time finding the strike zone but the F-M-E hitters were smart not swinging at close to strike pitches that were not strikes and would have just been hit as pop ups or ground outs if they had swung. So, yeah, it was just like this how it ended, the A/T pitcher walked in nine runners with the bases loaded. There was one bit of offense for F-M-E in the middle of 10 straight walks as Kurt's daughter, Courtney, clocked a pitch over the left fielder's head for a 2-RBI double. The game was over via the 10-run rule because of all that scoring in the bottom of five for F-M-E. A/T's time playing as an all stars team was up.

"I think our girls had an edge out here because during the season, because of a decision by Little League, they had to play up a division with the Majors (11-12 year old girls)," said Schwan. "We therefore had younger girls playing with (and against) older girls."

Manager Schwan had a scary moment though in this game, at least it appeared to be, when his pitcher, Berg, was injured in the bottom of the fourth sliding into home and getting out.

So Berg did not start the top of the fifth for F-M-E on the mound pitching. The leadoff batter for A/T drew a walk from the new pitcher then the next batter ripped it to right field and it was 12-9, F-M-E. So Berg's out was big as it looked like it would be only a short time before A/T caught up and then went ahead because they had plenty of good hitters.

But Berg amazingly, quickly, came back from that injury, only missing a couple batters before returning. She realized things were going to be OK with her leg and, perhaps, although she did not say, not OK with her team if she hadn't decided to leg it on out there.

"I was sliding into home on Monday and I pulled a muscle in my leg and twisted my leg a little," said Berg. "It hurt."