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GREENSBORO — For the second straight year, a Greensboro youth baseball all-star team is going to the Colt League World Series in Lafayette, Ind.

Greensboro Green team members will load into rented vans and leave at 9 a.m. today. The players will pass time on the 12-hour ride by telling jokes, talking hardball or taking naps.

But four returning players from last year's team can ponder the 7-4 loss to Puerto Rico in the final.

"I don't want to go there again and lose," said Jaylin Davis, a pitcher and outfielder. "Even though last year we had a good run."

Davis, along with Mitch Carson, Adam Gunn and Corey Kimber, return from last year's runner-up team. Greensboro Green plays in the 15-16 age group, and all four of those players are rising high school seniors.

Greensboro teams have gone to the World Series six times in the last seven years. But to reach the title game, a team will have to emerge from pool play and work through a short playoff. Games begin Saturday.

"I expect us to win this year," said Kimber, the team's top pitcher. "We have a better team, we have better pitching and more hitting."

Last year, an injury to leadoff hitter and center fielder Josiel Colon in a game before the championship hurt the team. Kimber and others said Greensboro Green has more depth this year and a different attitude.

"We have to play as a team," Kimber said, "and we have to keep ourselves up at all times."

The players feel that they could take the title, and the coach believes they have the talent to get into the title game.

"I feel like this year's team is just as good as last year's team," said coach DeAngelo Hall, who gave players this week off to rest.

Greensboro Green will begin pool play against the winner of the South region — a team from Texas, Hall said — on Saturday. They will next play Mexico and a host team from Lafayette.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com