West Region Hawaii team barely beats the midnight deadline

Ties LL record for longest game, with six minutes remaining until the contest would be suspended until Saturday morning in opener for both teams

By Arnie Leshin

Anyone for breakfast? Well, with all the Little League rules and regulations, there’s a place for everything, including a game that can not continue after midnight.

This one cane close, but when you’re in the bottom of the 11th inning and the scoreboard reads 9:54 Eastern time, and they about to call it quits for this day and to continue in the morning, the West Region champions from Honolulu, Hawaii, decided to wrap this one up on Friday night.

Batting last, the West’s heroics came on the 2-run home run off the bat of      winning pitcher Sean Yamaguici to advance to the winner’s  bracket and drop the Southeast Region champs from Peachtree, Ga., into the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination International 75th annual Little League Baseball World Series.

Yamaguici followed up a single to right from Caleb Okada with one out. He stepped into a fastball from losing pitcher Ben Traxler and parked it over the fence in left. Yamaguici then set the Southeast down in order in the bottom of the 11th. He worked the last two innings, struck out four and walked one.  

He and teammate Auka Kea came up with two hits each.

The West had eight hits and were flawless in the field. Southeast collected two hits and committed a pair of errors.

It followed Thursday’s 9-inning 3-2 victory for the Asia-Pacific Region South Korea’s over Puerto Rico’s Caribbean Region winners. But that one went three hours and 42 minutes, this one only two hours and 49 minutes.

This was the final game on Friday’s lengthy schedule, and it is rare to have a game that gets to the midnight hour. Of course, the 3-hour delay due to lightening didn’t help because each of the four games began late.

But this one almost made it. Once the regular six innings was played, Hawaii  threatened about every frame, including the bases loaded and one out in the seventh, two on and no out in the eighth, and in the ninth, a runner on second base with two down and it’s top hitter coming up, so southeast walked him intentionally and retired the next batter on a ground out to first.

Georgia didn’t do the same, no threats, just stellar pitching. Same with Hawaii, except it was hitting the ball and SE was catching it. The West employed four different pitchers, the Southeast two, and there were a total of 323 pitches.

It was late in South Williamsport, Pa., and the remaining crowd was feasting on whatever was left at the concession stands. Of course, there was also talk of suspending the game until the morning.

Another tight game featured the 5-4 win by the Great Lakes’ Michigan team as it scored five times in the last of the sixth to nip the Northwest Region youngsters from Gtandview, Idaho. Before that the hard-hitting Michigan gang was held at bay by the New England pitching.

In the remaining game, Japan won 11-1, but were only up 3-1 after three innings against the team from Spain, which hadn’t been here in 37 years, but played well until the booming bats led Japan to the rout. Japan is the defending champion and has won four of the last eight.

In elimination games today, the Caribbean Region faces the Australians, the Midwest takes on New England, and the Northwest meets up with Canada.