The Frogtown slowpitch softball team came together in 2003.

Frogtown won the Iowa Class E state tournament title that first year together.

It's no wonder the core of the team has stayed together. Frogtown won the Iowa Class D state title last summer.

Frogtown has made an impression this weekend at the Men's Class D Northern Slowpitch Championship at Clem Kelley diamonds.

Frogtown won its first three games before losing to Fort Atkinson, Wis., Budweiser/Electro-Glo 11-9 in Saturday's quarterfinals. Frogtown beat Sportsman's of Ames, Iowa, in the losers' bracket of the double-elimination tournament. Action concludes today.

The Frogtown players except one and two wives piled in two vans and made the nine-hour trip to Bismarck for the tournament. The one player decided to travel by airplane.

"It's nationals, it's what you play for," said Frogtown manager Josh Delagardelle. "We travel all over Iowa all summer for tournaments. A national title is what you play for."

But nine hours in a van?

"We had a good time," Delagardelle said. "We got to see some good sites, but I am dreading the ride home. Everybody took Thursday and Friday off work. The smart ones took Tuesday off."

The Frogtown team consists of players from Gilbertville, Cedar Falls, Raymond and Jesup all small towns in the Waterloo area.

Most of the players attended high school together in Gilbertville. Some played baseball or wrestled against each other in high school.

The team's name came from Gilbertville's nickname.

"Some people call Gilbertville Frogtown to make fun of it. We decided to take it as a compliment," Delagardelle said. "We just stick with Frogtown, then we don't have to keep changing sponsors."

The majority of the team experienced the heavy flooding in Iowa this spring.

"We didn't get to play ball for two weeks," Delagardelle said. "You couldn't even get to the complexes in Waterloo."

While a lot of money has been donated to communities in Iowa for flood relief, Frogtown was able to gather its finances for the season and make the trip here.

"We got our sponsors early in the year," Delagardelle said. "We had enough in the kitty to pay for the vans, hotels and gas. It's definitely nice to get away and have some fun."