Pabao Little League Wins Caribbean Region Championship, Earns Berth in 2007 Little League Baseball World Series

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WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (July 28, 2007) – For the fifth consecutive year, Pabao Little League from Willemstad on the island of Curacao will represent the Caribbean Region at the Little League Baseball World Series.

The Pabao Little League defeated Tati Lugo Little League, from Yauco, Puerto Rico, 3-0, in the championship game. Pabao Little League finished the eight-team tournament with a 5-0 record to qualify for the 61st Little League Baseball World Series for 11-12-year-olds that will be played in Williamsport, Aug. 17-26.

The Caribbean Region champion has won the Little League Baseball World Series one time, when a team from Pabao Little League defeated Conejo Valley (Calif.) Little League, 5-2, in the 2004 world championship game.

In 2005, a team from Pabao Little League lost the world championship game to West Oahu Little League from Ewa Beach, Hawaii, 7-6, in seven innings. Pabao Little League, which will be represented in the Little League Baseball World Series for the sixth time, did not advance out of International Pool play in 2006.

Pabao Little League joins Tokyo Kitasuna Little League, of Tokyo, Japan; Seguro Social Little League of Mexicali, Mexico; Li-Shing Little League of Taichung, Chinese Taipei; and La Victoria Little League of Maracaibo, Venezuela, as participants in the 2007 Little League Baseball World Series.

The World Series championship game can be seen live on ABC television at 3:30 p.m., on Sunday, Aug. 26. ABC also will televise the International championship game on Saturday, Aug. 25 at 12:30 p.m., followed by the United States championship at 3:30 p.m.

The 2007 World Series will be the first operated under the new eight-year television contract agreement with ESPN/ABC. Five games will be televised on ABC. This will be the second year that all of the World Series games will be televised in high definition. For the sixth year since the tournament expanded from eight to 16 teams in 2001, every team will have games on national television.

All 32 games of the World Series are expected to be televised again this year. Sixteen World Series games will be televised on ESPN and 11 will be televised on ESPN2.

In addition, the ESPN family of networks will carry all eight of the U.S. Regional Championship finals in the Little League Baseball division. The U.S. regional finals have been televised by ESPN and ESPN2 every year since 1997.

The next berth in the Little League Baseball World Series is expected to be decided on Sunday when the Transatlantic Region Tournament in Kutno, Poland is due to end.

The U.S. region finals, which will be televised live, are: Thursday, Aug 9 - Southeast (St. Petersburg, Fla., 8 p.m., ESPN); Friday, Aug. 10 - Southwest (Waco, Texas, 8 p.m., ESPN); Saturday; Aug. 11 - Midwest (Indianapolis, noon, ESPN); Mid-Atlantic (Bristol, Conn., 2 p.m., ESPN); Great Lakes (Indianapolis, 7 p.m., ESPN); West (San Bernardino, Calif., 9 p.m., ESPN); Sunday, Aug 12 – Northwest (San Bernardino, Calif., 10 p.m., ESPN2); Monday, Aug. 13 – New England (Bristol, Conn., 8 p.m., ESPN2). All game times are Eastern U.S. time.

Little League Baseball and Softball is the largest organized youth sports program in the world, with 2.7 million participants in all 50 states and more than 75 other countries.