Ryan Harlost picked up the complete-game victory, scattering five hits, allowing one run, and one walk, while striking out eight Asia-Pacific batters. He threw 3 1/3 innings of no-hit ball before Jude Abbadessa broke through in the fourth.
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The team representing the Mid-Atlantic region defeated the team from South Korea 2-1 on Sunday afternoon in front of a sellout crowd at Howard J. Lamade Stadium.
Mancini followed up his 13-strikeout effort in the USA winners’ bracket semifinal by holding Goodlettsville, Tenn., hitless for the first 4 1/3 innings in Saturday’s rematch while leading the upstate NY team to a 4-2 victory in the US championship game.
The Little League World Series has been dominated in recent years by teams outside of the United States: Either Japan or South Korea had won each of the last four tournaments. Harlost also scored one his team’s two fourth-inning runs after reaching safely with a base hit. But things got dicey in the top of the fifth when Yoomin Lee lined a pinch-hit solo homer, cutting New York’s lead to 2-1. McWilliams blast halved New Yorks lead, but Abbadessa struck out Carson Rucker to end the game. Harlost followed with a liner to the same spot and Rush plated the go-ahead run with a hit that fell in behind the shortstop.
This had been an incredible summer for Maine-Endwell, which won the Mid-Atlantic Championship before going 4-0 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania to win the US title.
“I couldn’t have asked for 11 better attitudes than I got from these kids”, Scott Rush said. South Korea knocked off Aguadulce, Panama in the International Championship Game on Saturday, 7-2.
The Endwell, New York, pitcher admitted it made him uneasy.
“Hats off to the team from South Korea”.
“I started with having confidence with the players behind me and all the defensive players and all the offensive players did really good”, Choi said through a translator.
Carlos Gonzalez had three hits for the Latin American Region champions. One batter later, Harlost scored on the passed ball to put the US team up 2-0. Edwar Bethancourth hit an RBI single in the fifth.
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“It was all of our last years of Little League”, Rush said.
