DECORAH - Dennis Olejniczak's hopes for the kids never travel just station-to-station.

Border-to-border might be more accurate.

"When good people never give up on themselves, good things come back to good people," said Decorah's veteran baseball coach. "There are so many examples in the state of Iowa right now over the last 15 months.

"It's classic Iowans, and that's what we want these kids to be - great, great citizens and some of them leaders, I hope.

"But are these good kids? Yeah, they're good kids."

Between the white lines, darting from base to base, Decorah has been good enough to take Olejniczak to his 10th state baseball tournament in 46 seasons as the Vikings' head coach. Tuesday, Decorah meets Norwalk in the opening round of Class 3A action at Principal Park in Des Moines.

Only the turn of the calendar will reveal if Olejniczak's players will become exemplary citizens and leaders. Right now, though, the 2009 Vikings have proven they own the resolve the coach wants to see.

Early in the year, Decorah struggled to a 1-4 start. Pitcher/infielder Josh Woodhouse was injured. Tyler Smith, the Vikings' top hurler and the second-leading hitter in the 3A tournament field at .488, dealt with his own aches and pains.

"I don't think that even some of our best fans in Decorah, and we've got some good ones, expected us to even have a .500 season," said Olejniczak. "It's a real credit to the kids on how we've stuck together and maintained the faith that if we keep plugging away, things will happen."

As the Vikings got healthy, they also put their game in order.

"The turning point was when we stopped making like three or four errors per game," said Tim Ruen, still another pitcher/infielder for Decorah. "We started to dig down deeper and play a lot better defensively. In practices, we tried harder to get better and it pays off."

Nothing was easy for the Vikings, though, especially in postseason play. They beat New Hampton by a run, rallied to take out Waukon in the district final and then held on in the bottom of the seventh to edge Olewein in the substate final.

The state tournament was at hand.

"We've really stayed together, like one big family as we like to call it," said Smith, who earned the save against the Huskies. "We were helping everybody out and doing what we need to, to win."

And the man guiding the ship was Olejniczak. He received a personal honor when the National HIgh School Coaches Association selected him as the Coach of the Year.

On the field, he did it his way - pushing and prodding the players to get better.

And the Vikings know they're part of the legacy. Assistant coach Mike Tangen, one of Olejniczak's former players, worked with the 2009 team during their little league days.

"Growing up, there's been a lot of pride put in the baseball team," said Smith.

Smith added, "All year, (Olejniczak) rides us hard and he rides us for a good reason. He knows what we can do and he brings it out."