BANGOR – Considering what young baseball players from Guam went through earlier this year, a 35-hour flight doesn’t seem like a big deal.

The 38-mile-long western Pacific island has been battered by two typhoons in the past year, including one in December that knocked out power and water for months. Interest in baseball waned as residents of the island, an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States, tried to recover.

“It was very bad. We had no power, we had water outages. It was devastating,” said Chris Leon Guerrero, head coach of Guam’s Senior League All-Star team, in town to take part in the Senior League World Series. “It swept through the island and tore everything down.”

But Guam’s Senior League All-Star team emerged from the devastation with a win in the Asia-Pacific division championships. On Tuesday the team was in Bangor, acclimating itself to the weather and time change and preparing for the World Series.

The games start Sunday at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.

There are 10 teams playing in the tournament, with five teams in each pool.

Pool A features Canada entry Prairie of Calgary, Alberta; Europe representative Khovrino of Moscow, Russia; Maine District 3 winner Orono-Veazie; South champion Central Chesterfield Little League of Chesterfield, Va.; and West winner Hilo of Hilo, Hawaii.

Pool B includes Guam; Central representative Urbandale Little League of Iowa; East champion South Vineland Little League of South Vineland, N.J.; Latin America champ and defending World Series winner Curacao; and Southwest entry Texas East, which pulls players from Washington County Little League of Brenham, Texas.

An East-Central matchup between New Jersey and Iowa opens the tournament Sunday at 1 p.m. Fans will get their first look at Orono-Veazie on Sunday as the host takes on Prairie at 8:30 p.m.

Game times for the Monday through Thursday schedule are 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m., and 8 p.m.

Each team will play every other team in its pool once, and the top two teams advance to the semifinal round.

Semifinal games will be played at noon and 3 p.m. on Friday, and the championship will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16.

Curacao, Russia and New Jersey are the only three teams to return to Bangor.

East regional winner New Jersey was the final team to qualify for the World Series. South Vineland clinched the final berth Friday morning when it beat Maryland 11-4 in the continuation of a rain-suspended game from Thursday night.

Iowa defeated Kentucky 15-0 Thursday night.

Guam will play its first game Sunday at 6 p.m. against Texas East. The team from Guam, which has a population of 126,000, gained a trip to Bangor when it edged the Philippines, population 76.5 million, by a score of 12-11 in the regional.

“It really means a lot,” Leon Guerrero said. “A lot of people back home doubted that we would even win a game in the regionals. So we proved them wrong and we want to show them what we have here.”

Leon Guerrero said last year there were nine Senior League teams on the island. But last summer Typhoon Chata’an hit Guam, and then in December, Supertyphoon Pongsona did its damage.

This year the teams dwindled down to three, in part because of the typhoon.

“The kids had a tough time,” said Leon Guerrero, a 21-year-old who recently played on a Guam team that competed in the Big League World Series. “Baseball season was just starting there, so we had to postpone practices for another two months. It was really hard for everyone to get back on their feet. But eventually we did, just like we always do.”

The U.S. military has a large presence on Guam, but Leon Guerrero said his kids are locals.

The team arrived early to get used to the 14-hour time difference and the cooler, drier weather. The team also wanted to get its trip out of the way early. The team flew from Guam to Japan to Hawaii to Seattle to Detroit to Bangor. With layovers it took about 35 hours.

The team practiced a few times this week, attended a Bangor Lumberjacks game in Orono, and spent some time at the Bangor Mall.

“They’re enjoying every little moment of it,” Leon Guerrero said. “The hospitality has been great.”