The Little League team in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, got a heroes' welcome on Friday, after returning from their first-ever trip to the Little League World Series.

"To take 12 kids from a really small community and go do what we did on a global stage is pretty incredible," coach Ted Kaczmarski said.

Players got to ride on top of a firetruck in a parade through town before a big party downtown.

"It's just fantastic. The community has rallied around in so many ways. If you go and you look at the homemade signs that you see in the windows, you look at the signs that people have printed up," said Clarendon Hills village president Eric Tech.

The team might not be champions, but they arrived at the celebration feeling like big winners.

"It's awesome just getting to know that all these people back at home are watching us," Jack Kaczmarski said.

"Great knowing that we have a huge fanbase behind us," Jack O'Malley said.

"All of my friends noticed. Everybody in school. It's just really cool to see how many people noticed how well we did," Christian Gernot said. "Our baseball team will all go on to be great baseball players. We learned a lot this summer being a team, and I think there's great futures ahead for every single baseball player on this team."