​HAMILTON — The numbers stretch across the board overlooking West Side Little League, reminders of teams and players who came before.Twenty-three Ohio championships. Five trips to Williamsport.At most Little League programs, those numbers would represent a history worth celebrating. At West Side, they also establish the expectation for whoever comes next.The latest group gets its opportunity beginning Saturday.West Side returns to the Little League Baseball Great Lakes Region Tournament in Whitestown, Indiana, where the Ohio champion will face Michigan champion Greater Bay Little League at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Little League Central Region Complex on ESPN+.The five-team tournament runs through Wednesday, with the champion advancing to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.“Like you guys all see, our board up there with all our state titles, everybody expects to win here,” West Side manager Tim Nichting said. “We have a very competitive regular season. We’ve got competitive coaches. And our kids all know the history of West Side Little League. They just want to fill the shoes of all the kids before them.”That history began long before the current players — or even their coaches — arrived.West Side held its first opening day in 1952 and has spent more than seven decades as part of Hamilton’s baseball identity. The league competes in Ohio District 9 and operates from its Eaton Avenue complex.Nichting has been around for much of the program’s modern history.He began helping his father coach a Little League team in 1983, starting a coaching run that has stretched more than four decades. Before that, he spent two years as a batboy and three years playing Little League.His connection to West Side is essentially lifelong.“You get older, you realize what you’ve done as a person,” Nichting said. “Having Kenny and me and him just going at it year after year, I think that’s obviously the consistency.“We’re kind of — keep saying it all the time — we’re a little nuts in the head, but we love making kids better in Hamilton and baseball. My dad started that for me, and I just go from that. I had a good teacher.”“Kenny” is longtime West Side coach Ken Coomer, another central figure in the program’s sustained success.Nichting and Coomer have traded roles during some of West Side’s biggest runs. Nichting managed West Side’s 2007 Little League World Series team with Coomer as a coach. Three years later, Coomer managed and Nichting coached when Hamilton returned to Williamsport.West Side’s five World Series appearances came in 1991, 1993, 2007, 2010 and 2021. Little League’s historical records show Hamilton has accounted for five of Ohio’s 12 appearances in Williamsport.The most recent trip became the deepest.West Side reached the 2021 Little League World Series championship game before falling to Taylor North, Michigan, 5-2. It was the first time the Hamilton program reached the World