Knight Dominates, Westport Wins New England Championship

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Westport Little League of Connecticut needed every bit of Chad Knight's dominating performance on the mound to pull out an incredible 1-0 victory over Lincoln, Rhode Island in the New England Little League championship game. Knight threw a complete game with 14 strikeouts and allowed just one hit, a bunt single in the fifth inning.

It wasn't until the bottom of the fifth inning that Wesport got its first hit either. Ricky Offenberg ripped a lead off double to get Connecticut going. Drew Rogers hit a hard ground ball up the middle, but Dave Bordieri made a diving stop to keep it in the infield and prevent Offenberg from scoring. After a strikeout and a walk, Knight hit a ground ball to third base that was a potential double play ball, but it mishandled and only one out was recorded. Offenberg scored on the play giving Knight an RBI and all the runs he needed.

In the sixth, Knight sandwiched a groundout with his 13th and 14th strikeouts of the night and sent Westport into a frenzied celebration.

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Lincoln's Dominic Cunha pitched the game of his life and didn't allow a Westport hit for four innings. He finished with 4 1/3 innings pitched with one run on just the two fifth-inning hits. He struck out 10. It wasn't enough to match Knight. The Westport hitters looked terrible at the plate for most of the night, but were still able to work Cunha's pitch count. Through three innings Cunha was sitting on 62 pitches. Knight had just 38.

Lincoln, which relied on big bats all summer long, had just three base runners in the game including Patrick Gribbin's bunt single. Nobody reached second base.

Westport heads to Williamsport for the first time in league history and will face South Nashville (TN) Little League at 8 p.m. on Thursday night in the Little League World Series.

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When Westport is hitting, the offense can come from anywhere. Harry Azadian, Knight's pitching cohort, led the team in multiple offensive categories including 11 RBI. Five different players homered in the regional for Westport, and the staff ERA was just 1.03 led by Knight and Azadian. Offenberg leads the defense at shortstop which is nearly flawless.

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