Back when they started playing Little League baseball together, Travis Kruger and Tyson Edwards just wanted to see how well they and the other 8-year-olds on the Minor B Expos could do from one game to the next.

That was long before they would learn how a friendship formed on the baseball diamond could carry them as college players through a conference championship and to a shot at the state title. By the start of the 2009 season at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, they knew that their bond of teamwork and mutual respect would make it their best year yet, and possibly even rub off on their Viking teammates.

“You know you want teammates who have your back and will work just as hard,” Edwards said. “(Kruger) never hid anything from me. If he thought I did something wrong or wasn’t working hard, he got in my face and told me to work harder.”

That’s just one of the aspects of teamwork they picked up in six years of Little League all-star teams, at least as many summer travel teams and four more years at West High.

“We’ve had a lot of success all the way up through high school and even in college, together and against each other,” Kruger said. “We know what we’re capable of.”

“I didn’t want him to be satisfied with just being good,” Edwards added. “I wanted to push him to be better than he thought, and I know he did the same with me.”

Now that they will move on to separate four-year colleges, they can count the 2009 season as one of the highlights of their baseball careers.

Both were starting infielders for the Diablo Valley College team that won the Big 8 Conference championship this year. Edwards, the Vikings’ second baseman, made the first team for the Big 8 Conference and was selected for the California Community College 2009 Northern California All-America Team as an infielder. He batted .401, and his extra-base hits, including 20 doubles, gave him a slugging percentage of .580.

Kruger played third base for the Vikings and batted .344 for the 2009 season. The two were the Vikings’ most reliable presences at the plate, with Edwards posting an on-base percentage of .468 and Kruger putting up a .442.

The Vikings won the Northern California Region I and Super Regional tournaments and went on to finish in third place in the California Community College Athletic Association state championships in Fresno the last week of May.

When Edwards and Kruger started playing baseball, it was usually on opposing teams in Tracy Little League. Once they became friends on the league’s all-star teams, the regular-season games became more competitive. Edwards recalled a couple of matchups where he looked forward to his team, the Padres, going up against Kruger’s team, the Blue Jays, and he knew the competition was going to be good.

“I remember them saying that Travis was the best hitter in the league, and that always fueled me to be a little bit better myself,” Edwards said.

When they got to West High as freshmen, they had been opponents and teammates, and knew they how good their team could be.

“When we were at high school, no other team had a swagger like our team,” Edwards said. “We wanted that swagger to rub off on guys. We knew our team had talent, so our whole team just pushed each other. We wanted to be the best team there was.”

They figure that kind of outlook helped make the Vikings successful this year.

“The DVC team this year is the probably closest team I’ve ever been on,” Edwards said. “It was a group of brothers out there. I wouldn’t say it started with us, but we definitely helped bring that attitude.”

The Vikings had finished the previous 2008 season with a spot in the regional tournament, but were knocked out in the first round. A team of returning players, plus a few freshmen in big roles, was determined to change that.

“We sat down as a team and set some goals for the season,” Kruger said. “Our goal wasn’t just to win X amount of games, or to even win conference, which we did for the first time since the 1950s. Our goal was to get to Fresno and win the state championship. Just to get there was a pretty good accomplishment for all of us.”

The Vikings got to the Super Regionals before they were knocked into the losers bracket and had to play a double-header to get back to the championship game. They then beat San Jose twice to win the tournament and make it to the state Final Four.

“Those were tough days. We had to dig down deep in order to make it happen,” Kruger said.

At the state championships, the Vikings started with a 3-2 win over Santa Ana, and then fell 12-2 to Orange Coast. Diablo Valley beat Santa Ana again 5-1 to make it into a game against the Mustangs from San Joaquin Delta College. But the Mustangs won 14-10 to leave the Vikings in third place.

The Mustangs finished the tournament in second behind Orange Coast.

Both Kruger and Edwards will move on to four-year colleges, where they won’t be on the same team but could still compete against each other.

Kruger will attend Chico State on a baseball scholarship. Edwards still hasn’t decided where he will go, but can choose between scholarships at California Polytechnic State University, Pomona, and California State University, Los Angeles.

“Next year will be a big change. It will be the first time we haven’t played together in, like, 12 years,” Kruger said.