The List Gets Longer...

Washington D.C.

Capitol City Little League won its first District of Columbia championship since 2010 with a 7-1 victory over rival Northwest Washington. NWLL had won two straight titles and three of the last four since Cap City’s run of 20 straight city titles. Sofia Ohanian broke the game open in the third with a two-out two-run blast to Cap City up for good. Isaac Frumkin had a pair of doubles and an RBI. Robert Reynolds picked up the win giving up just three hits over 4 2/3 innings. He struck out five. Cap City will look to advance to the regional semifinals for the first time since 2004.


Alaska

Sitka knocked off defending state champion Gastineau Channel 5-1 in the District 2 finals behind a masterful pitching performance from Bryan Joseph who struck out nine batters and induced eight ground ball outs in 5 2/3 innings. Sitka will now face Abbott-O-Rabbit LL from Anchorage in the Best-of-5 state championship series.
Florida

The state tournament is set in Florida as all eight sections are complete. The best teams nearly always advance through sections in Florida because of their great schedule. They play round robin with no championship game. If you’re unbeaten and you beat everyone else already, why should you have to beat them again in a single game, right? Right.

Plant City looks like a solid contender and is the defending state champion. Florida tends to be wide-open in the state finals, however.

Virginia

Virginia is down to its final four now with Tuckahoe American, Fairfax National, West Springfield American, and defending state champion Great Falls. Tuckahoe hasn’t allowed a run in four games now after mercy-ruling Lynchburg in the quarterfinals. Although, West Springfield has been a state champion with this group before.

Texas

Universal Little League of Corpus Christi needed to sweep a double header this morning against powerhouse Midland Northern and they did. Juan Sosa and Jacob Garza each hit home runs in an 11-1 rout during the first game. Garza struck out 14 batters in the second game to pull off the sweep with a 3-0 victory. It was the fourth straight elimination victory in three days.

Hawaii

Central East Maui sits in the driver’s seat for the Hawaii state championship after knocking off Waipio 3-1 in the winners’ bracket final over the weekend despite being outhit 4-3 in the game. Waipio led 1-0 before Rayven Ruiz tied it with a solo home run.

Mississippi

Ocean Springs Little League won its sixth state title in the last 10 years. OSLL is 8-0 in the tournament so far and won the best 2-out-of-3 series with Hattiesburg with a pair of mercy-rule victories. Mitch Murrell hit two home runs in the state title series to lead Ocean Springs. Mississippi is looking for its first trip to Williamsport since Hattiesburg went in 1977.

Northern California

Santa Cruz American jumped out to an 8-0 lead after two innings and held onto a 10-5 win. Javier Lopez blasted a pair of home runs in the victory. SCA will face Belmont Redwood Shores on Wednesday.

Nebraska

Kearney Little League is looking to defending its regional crown and got off to a great start by winning the Nebraska state championship. It’s the third straight trip to Indianapolis for the Midwest Region Tournament for Kearney. Keegan Thurston was dominant on the mound for KLL while striking out 12 in the 3-0 victory over Omaha Keystone. 

State Champions List

Utah- Dixie LL (St. George)
Alabama- Jackson LL

Oklahoma- Tulsa LL
Idaho- Coeur d’Alene LL
Washington- Eastlake LL (Sammamish)
Mississippi- Ocean Springs LL
Nebraska- Kearney LL
Washington, D.C.- Capitol City LL
Texas West- Universal LL (Corpus Christi)
Louisiana- Bossier National LL

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Early Teams To Watch Around The Country

Throughout most of the big states in the country, it’s sectional week. Everyone is a district champion from here on out. Without seeing the teams in person it’s nearly impossible to predict who is strong based on score-watching, but past history of leagues, districts, sections, etc is a decent predictor. Success as 10-year olds and 11-years olds helps too. Based on what we’ve seen so far, here’s some notes on the big surprises and disappointments around the country.

Biggest Surprise

Pennsylvania: Keystone Little League. The boys from Lock Haven were the darlings of the Little League World Series in 2011, and their younger compatriots are trying to equal the feat. Keystone didn’t win the district championship when they were 10 years old and they didn’t win the district championship when they were 11 years old. In fact, Loyalsock won the state title from Keystone’s district last year. So what has Keystone accomplished thus far?

Keystone has wins of 26-0, 21-1, 27-1, 14-1, and 14-3. That final game was over Loyalsock. They have yet to play a 6-inning game. In five games, they have 25 home runs. Definitely a team to watch.

Biggest Disappointment

Tennessee: Goodlettsville Little League. The league that made it all the way to the Promised Land last season was primed for another big run. Goodlettsville has come out of nowhere to become a Little League power with dominant champions at every level now, but not so fast. South Nashville Little League had something to say about it and beat Goodlettsville twice to win the district title.

Teams to Watch

New England: One of the smaller regions in terms of size and colder regions in terms of climate, New England actually packs a good punch in baseball and is tough to read this early. South Burlington Vermont almost pulled off one of the more dramatic upsets in regional history last year and they return 5-6 players from that team. They won’t be a favorite if they get to the regional, but expect them to get there.

Others: North Andover East MA, Lincoln RI, Westport CT, Saco ME, and Rye NH.

Mid-Atlantic: There are more leagues in the Mid-Atlantic region than any other region in the country. It’s extremely hard to get out of certain states, such as New Jersey. The best teams don’t win the region most years. Right now, Nottingham NJ looks like a good bet to make a run. One of the most storied programs in the East, Nottingham reached the LLWS back in 1992. They rolled easily through a tough district and have a good schedule for the sections. If they escape New Jersey, watch out.

Others: Massapequa Coast NY, West Point PA, Berlin MD, Capitol City DC, and Canal DE.

Southeast: The Southeast has become the land of Warner Robins GA. The league is monstrous. People move there to play baseball and they love their sports. WRALL challenges for regional titles year after year out of Georgia now. It's amazing to someone from the northeast to see a league threaten for a regional title every single year. We're used to more depth up here, I guess. Either way though, Georgia Little League is certainly on a high right now. Plant City FL might be a team to watch early on. They won the state title a year ago and Florida is always strong.

Southwest: Texas and Louisiana are the powers in this region and both states have its share of great programs. Watch for the Lafayettes and South Lake Charles’ from Louisiana and in Texas watch for Midland Northern in the West and Pearland or Sweeny in the East.

West: Southern California is always packed with talent. The winner is a LLWS favorite right off the bat. The team on the tip of everyone’s tongues for right now is Sherman Oaks. There’s a long way to go though. In Northern California, Santa Cruz’s name has popped up with some big time pitching, MLB pedigrees, and big bats.

The Northwest, Great Lakes, and Midwest don’t have a ton of states with sectionals, so their district tournaments are barely finished. It’s still way too early to even pretend to have teams to watch in these regions currently. We’ll get back to them later on.

We’ll have tons of updates early on from the East, especially New York and New Jersey in the next week. We’d love to get contributors from other regions as well.

Do you have blog ideas and want me to write about them? Do you want to contribute content to the blog yourself? If so, shoot me an email at section1guycom@aol.com.

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