Only a Few Days Left! Saturday's Roundup (July 27, 2013)

We're getting down to the nitty gritty in terms of available days left for these "Roundup" articles. Soon, we'll be into in-depth regional previews, full daily recaps from the East Region, and news and notes from around the country.

Northern California

Belmont Redwood Shores forced an "if" game with a 2-0 victory and no-hitter against previously-unbeaten Santa Cruz American. Nicholas Lopez took it to SCA all-day with an array of breaking balls and a good fastball. He struck out 12. BRS elected to intentionally walk Javier Felix twice during the victory. Sean Lee, who took a 2-0 loss to Santa Cruz in the winners bracket final, will take the mound for Belmont Redwood Shores. Felix was dominant in that game but isn't eligible for the "if" game.

Southern California

Chula Vista Eastlake took the SoCal Best-of-three series by the horns with a 6-3 victory and saved its number one pitcher who threw just 35 pitches. The six runs scored by Eastlake were the fewest of the tournament so far, but the boys from outside San Diego are in a great position now with their offense and a pitching advantage.

Oregon

Lake Oswego, who went undefeated in pool play, survived one of the weirdest state tournament formats after beating the eighth seed Klamath Falls in the state championship game, 7-0. Klamath Falls had upset previously unbeaten Pendleton, and then fourth seed Hermiston in the semifinals, but finally ran out of magic against Lake Oswego. LOLL shut out Sprague 3-0 earlier in the day before the victory over KLAFF.

Iowa

Speaking of weird state tournament results, Urbandale Little League won the Iowa state championship game after a seven-game round robin in which four teams all finished 5-2. Due to runs against, Urbandale and Appanoose County advanced. The remaining 5-2 teams just went home. With eight teams, it seems like a general double elimination state tournament would work, but maybe that's just me.

Tennessee

South Nashville has battled all the way back after an opening round loss in the Tennessee state tournament. SNLL knocked winners bracket champion Spring Hill with a 10-3 victory. The two squads will come back and play for all the marbles on Sunday. South Nashville lost 4-3 on the first day to West Knox LL but has won six straight games including a come-from-behind victory over West Knox. It will take a seventh to win a state title and give District 7 a sweep. Rival Goodlettsville won the state championships at the 10s and 11s level last week.

Connecticut

Westport took Game 1 of the Best-of-3 championship series against Coginchaug with an 8-2 victory. Pitcher Chad Knight allowed two unearned runs in the first inning before mowing down Coginchaug's vaunted offense with 14 strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. Max Popken had a two-run home run and Chris Drbal had a two-run double. Read about the game in its entirety HERE.

New York

South Shore American pitched its ace, Nick Scala, on the opening day of the tournament and gambled. SSA won that game 13-0, but lost its next game 4-2 to get dropped to the first round of the losers bracket. The gamble failed. No matter. South Shore has shut out three straight opponents since then and now gets a rematch with Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake in the state championship with, you guessed it, Nick Scala on the hill. As for the offense, it's been coming from a different group of players each day. In the 4-0 win over Massapequa, it was Nick Anderson.

New Jersey

East Greenwich will try to become the first team from South Jersey to win the state championship since South Vineland in 1991. Toms River East American will be the team trying to keep the streak alive. To do it the 1998 Little League World Series champions will need back-to-back wins. Watch for big games from EG's Shawn Dougherty and TRE's Dougie Pombo.


State Champions List

WEST
Arizona- Chandler National South LL
Hawaii- Central East Maui LL
Nevada- Mountain Ridge LL (North Las Vegas)
Utah- Dixie LL (St. George)
Northern California-
Southern California-

NORTHWEST
Washington- Eastlake LL
Idaho- Coeur d'Alene LL
Alaska- Abbott-O-Rabbit LL (Anchorage)
Oregon- Lake Oswego LL
Wyoming- Big Sky LL (Billings)

MIDWEST
Iowa- Urbandale LL
Nebraska- Kearney LL
Kansas- Girard LL
Minnesota- Coon Rapids/Andover American LL
North/South Dakota- Timberline LL (Rapid City)
Missouri-

GREAT LAKES
Indiana- Hagerstown LL
Kentucky- Knox County LL (Barboursville)
Michigan- Grosse Pointe Woods Shores LL
Wisconsin- Burlington LL
Ohio-
Illinois-

SOUTHWEST
New Mexico- Fairacres LL (Las Cruces)
Colorado- North Boulder LL
Texas West- Universal LL (Corpus Christi)
Texas East- Pearland Maroon LL
Louisiana- Bossier National LL
Arkanas- Malvern LL
Oklahoma- Tulsa LL
Mississippi- Ocean Springs LL

SOUTHEAST
Georgia- Columbus Northern LL
North Carolina- Myers Park/Trinity LL (Charlotte)
South Carolina- Northwood LL
Alabama- Jackson LL
West Virginia- Barboursville LL
Virginia- Tuckahoe American LL
Tennessee-
Florida-

MID-ATLANTIC
District of Columbia- Capitol City LL
Maryland- Berlin LL
Pennsylvania- Lionville LL
Delaware-
New York-
New Jersey-

NEW ENGLAND
Rhode Island- Lincoln LL
New Hampshire- Rye LL
Vermont- South Burlington LL
Maine- Saco LL
Connecticut-
Massachusetts-

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Day 2: Record Crowd Gets Heartbroken

In one of the wildest games in my Little League World Series experiences, North Oldham Kentucky blanket hometown favorites Keystone, Pennsylvania, 1-0.

More than 41,000 fans officially watched Kentucky's Griffin McLarty single-handedly beat Pennsylvania with a complete game shutout on the mound and a first inning homerun to win it. Most of the nerves on the field didn't seem to come from the players as the umpires converged, convened, were overuled, and just plain embarrassed themselves at one point.

The most egregious of the calls came in the fourth when Brandon Miller ripped a double down the left field line. The ball curved around the third base umpire (to the inside) and landed squarely on the foul line. The play broke up a perfect game and gave PA a runner in scoring position with no outs. Without looking at the ball land or remembering that he had a colleague behind him, the umpire called it foul. The call was first overturned, and then possibly even reviewed. In the end, once the umpires hands went up the play was dead and no amount of replay could change that. PA still got it's first hit that inning and had runners in scoring position, but the first of two really bad decisions by the third base coach killed Keystone.

By the sixth inning, PA was actually outhitting KY. A leadoff double by McCloskey was wasted when he was sent home on a bobbled play at first. KY's defender recovered in time to gun another PA player easily at the plate.

Alex Garbrick promptly ripped a single that would've tied it. McLarty settled down and struck out two more batters to end it. He finished with 12 K's.

I'm almost positive I've said it on this blog at least once while talking about PA. They ran themselves into so many outs in Bristol during the regional that it wasn't a coincidence. They are over-aggressive to a serious fault. It cost them a big one today.

In the first US game today, SoCal showed off it's pitching strength and then dinked and dunked it's way to an 11-0 victory over Rhode Island. Nothing about the game was surprising, but California still needs to hit more to win a championship.

I didn't get to watch too much of today's international action because of the rain delay and the 41,000 people wanting tickets to the PA game. I saw Canada-Saudi Arabia and they played as expected. Two of the weaker regions with both teams getting a gift to Williamsport equals average pitching and average defense.

Holland was better than expected supposedly, and Venezuela was "decent" from what I heard. To me, Mexico-Japan winner will take international championship.

So far, the biggest issue with Modified double elimination over pool play is that the two beat teams in each bracket aren't guaranteed to make the final. If Mexico-Japan are better than Venezuela-Canada it doesn't matter. Someone from Venezuela's pool has to be in the international championship.

Tomorrow is my final day on location. It will be interesting to see an old school Eastern Region championship game with New England vs. Mid-Atlantic. If I'm thinking correctly the last time the two Eastern teams played was in the 2002 semifinals. Worcester Mass beat Harlem NY on a walk-off homerun.

Day 1: Curious Pitch Count Decisions Rule The Day

A long first day of games is in the books. After a three-and-a-half hour drive to Williamsport, and nine hours of games, I'm exhausted. I'm not nearly as tired as the Little League World Series managers will be after trying to work out their pitching staffs. With a double elimination tournament confined to just a few days, its not something many managers will be used to.

In Game 1, Mexico put itself on the map with a 3-0 victory over Chinese Taipei. Mexico's starting pitcher, Jorge Jacobo, dominated the Taiwanese hitters by striking out 12 batters in a two-hit shutout. The big question mark for Mexico is that Jacobo is now spent for 4 days. In a tournament built like this one, burning a pitcher for four days can be dicey. On the other hand, Asia-Pacific was incredibly inept in the field. With six errors on the day (5 officially, I gave them 6), it might've been the worst defensive performance in Chinese Taipei LL history. The even more remarkable thing is that during warmups, they looked like the greatest.

Sticking with that same pool, Japan mercy-ruled Aruba 12-1 in typical Japanese fashion. Taking advantage of an error here and there, a bunt here and there, and then boom, a blast. Proving that they're always one of the headiest teams in the LLWS, the Japanese manager pulled his starter at 50 pitches. He's eligible to start against Mexico in the winner's bracket final of that pool. I understand that a blowout victory makes it easier to pull your starter, but still, what is Mexico going to do until Tuesday? Maybe they have a couple more aces up their sleeve. As for Aruba, their big ace pitched well and could do damage in this tournament, except...  Aruba burned him in a blowout loss. Aruba is probably going to be two-and-out now.

On the United States side, Montana took advantage of its first World Series appearance with a 6-4 victory over South Dakota. Cole MacKenzie had the big hit of the day for Northwest with a 2-out 2-run double in the 5-run fourth inning. Montana flashed some serious leather in the victory. South Dakota came into the series with a reputation for hitting, and they currently lead the homerun board with three. Unfortunately, walks hurt the boys from the Mount Rushmore-area.

The first night game of the 65th Little League World Series was a marquee matchup between Louisiana and Georgia. Neither league is a stranger to the LLWS, and it showed with a well-played game. Georgia was touted as a team with a dominant ace and not a whole lot of hitting. So far, that held true. Louisiana's Ethan Hines quieted the Georgia bats until the sixth inning before Hayden Erbe picked up the save by getting out of a bases loaded no-out jam. The biggest question mark of the night though was Georgia's star pitcher, Jake Fromm's absence from the mound. Jacob Giles pitched very well and is definitely a top of the line number two pitcher, but Fromm's 77-MPH fastball could've been used tonight for Georgia.

Day 1's Team Rankings

1. Mexico

2. Japan

3. Louisiana

4. Georgia

5. Chinese Taipei

6. Montana

7. Aruba

8. South Dakota