Yesterday was elimination day

Today was elimination day, but kudos to the Managua, Nicaragua team for still hanging around. After losing its opener, 2-0 to Caribbean Curacao, it has survived three elimination games after dominating Aguadulce, Panama, 8-1, Tuesday in the baseball Little League World Series played in South Williamsport, Pa.

Now Nicaragua might get a chance to avenge its lone defeat, for it will play the winner of the upcoming Curacao-Canada contest.

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It was a scoreless game after three innings, but Nicaragua took the lead for good on Luis Garcia’s 3-run home run in the top of the fourth. Panama tallied its only run in the bottom of the frame, but Nicaragua added two more runs in the fifth and capped it off with three in the sixth. It managed eight hits and did not commit any errors. Panama had three hits and one miscue.

Same with once-beaten Mid-Atlantic Pennsylvania and Great Lakes Indiana, with both hoping to remain in the hunt in game two. Here, the Hollidaysburg team from Pa. picked up two runs in the first and another two in the second while Haverford, Indiana went scoreless in both frames.

And then, after Pennsy added two more runs in the third and led 6-0 when it wasn’t raining, but they brought out the tarp and the weather report had those dark skies heading this way. And that’s quite a long delay, but the skies emptied and it poured, but the norm here whenever the World Series is played.

After the one-hour rain delay, it didn’t take long for the Mid-Atlantic team to end the game. It had a 6-0 lead after four innings, and in the fifth it pieced together four quick runs to up the lead to 10-0 and the contest came to an abrupt halt via the mercy rule being applied.

So Pennsylvania, which lost to Texas in the opener would like to meet Texas again if the Southwest team gets past Iowa. In the three-straight wins, Pennsy has outscored the opposition, 24-6. On the mound this time, right-hander Braden Hatch went the route for the winners and struck out 10 batters (in four innings) that included 51 strikes in 55 pitches at one point.

Ousted were Panama and Indiana.

Joining them came the loser of Canada and Curacao.

Well, Pennsylvania and Nicaraqua got what they wanted, return games against Texas and Curacao, respectively. Both won earlier and were joined by the Southwest Texas in its ouster of Davenport, Iowa, 4-0, and Curacao, a 4-2 winner that eliminated Canada.

Both Penn and Nicaraqua lost their respective openers, Penn to Texas and Nicaragua to Curacao. They both won three in a row, and all four are in the elimination round.

Curacao, the Caribbean champion, scored twice each in the first two innings and kept Canada scoreless until it tallied twice in the top of the sixth.

As for Texas, it scored three times in the top of the third to break the scoreless deadlock and added one in the sixth. Iowa had gained the World Series for the first time since 1975 and did well, losing a tough extra-inning 8-7 game to Indiana in its opener.

The undefeated list has four on it, all with 3-0 records — Nolensville, Tennessee, from the Southeast and Honolulu, Hawaii from the West from the United States field, and from the International field, Chinese Tapei (Tawain) City and Matamoros, Mexico. They are all counting on getting to the respective semifinals, but they do have company from those still surviving.