SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
The Little League season is over for the surprising boys from Oklahoma, while Texas West gets a rematch with Louisiana Wednesday and remains in quest of making it to the 72nd annual LL World Series in Williamsport, Pa., that begins August15th.
For Oklahoma, which entered the Southwest Region in Waco, Tex., with only one win in three appearances there, battled back with three-straight shutouts after losing the opener to Texas West, 11-3.
But once again, it fell to Texas West, 5-2, by giving up four runs in the first inning. Oklahoma cut the deficit to 4-1 in the fourth, but each team scored once each to bring the final result. Oklahoma wound up at 3-2.
Texas West, now 3-1, lines up again with Louisiana (3-0) after dropping the previous game among the two, 6-5.
Big game in the West Region in San Bernardino, Calf., Thursday when Northern California and Hawaii, both unbeaten in two starts, clash. Arizona and Southern California, both 1-1, are the two top challengers and play Wednesday.
In the Southeast Region in Warner Robbins, Ga., Georgia (2-1) and South Carolina (3-1) go at in the semifinal for the right to face 3-0 Virginia with Williamsport the next stop for the winner.
Kentucky and Michigan, each 1-0, are playing in the Great Lakes Region semis in Westfield, Ind.with the survivor meeting up with 2-1 Illinois.
In the Northwest Region in San Bernardino, Idaho and Oregon both sport 1-1 records and the winner then faces Montana, which is 2-1.
The Mid-Atlantic Region played in Bristol, Conn., has four teams still in the running to advance to the World Series, with New York (2-0) and Washington D.C, (1-0) meeting up, as well as New Jersey (2-1) and Pennsylvania (1-1).
In the New England Region also in Bristol, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, both 1-0, clash in one semifinal, and in the other it’s another match-up of 1-1 teams when host Connecticut and Maine take the field.
In the Midwest Region also played in Westfield, Ind., Minnesota and Iowa take 2-0 records into one semi. In the other, it’s 2-1 teams Missouri and North Dakota meeting up.
With the exception of Canada, which always starts later than the rest, the other International Region champions are onboard.
In the Asia-Pacific Region, it’s the usually strong South Korea. The Australia Region will be represented by Cranulla. Curaco A won in the Caribbean Region. In the Europe-Africa Region, it will be Italy playing in the World Series. The Japan Region champion comes from Chaufu. And in the Mexico Region, Mala-Torres was the winner.
As for the Canada Region, which improves each year, Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario are among the leaders in the field.
NOTES: Interesting that the girls now have their World Series, in softball. But softball has been around for quite some time, and there has been 18 girls who have chosen to play Little League baseball instead of Little League softball.
In 2004, there were two in the field, and one was the highly publized Mo’ne Davis from the Taney LL in Philadelphia, which played in the Mid-Atlantic Region with Davis in the spotlight. She was super working on the mound in Williamsport.
There was also Emma March of the South Vancouver LL from British Columbia and made it to the big show by winning the Canada Region.
In the history of Little League baseball, 37 International teams have won the championship, and the United States has won 35. California teams have won seven times, the USA state with the most. Chinese Taipei has won 17 times and is the country with the most.
Little League baseball has grown to 42 states active in the United States along with 28 different countries. Countries that have won the LL World Series baseball championships are Curacao, South Korea, Mexico, Venezuela, Japan, Chinese Taipei, and the United States.
Today, Little League baseball and softball consists of approximately two million boys and girls in all 50 states and more than 80 other countries on six continents.
