Late-Inning Rally Earns Coon Rapids National Little League Midwest Region Championship, Berth in 61st Little League Baseball World Series

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WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Aug. 11, 2007) – Minnesota’s Coon Rapids National Little League scored six runs in the fifth inning and four more in the sixth inning to pull away for a 17-8 win over Harney Little League from Rapid City, S.D., in the Midwest Region Championship game Saturday afternoon at Stokely Field in Indianapolis.

Anthony Mrosla, Dominic Reff and Brent Golobich highlighted Coon Rapids National’s 12-hit offense. Mrosla went 3-for-3 with a two-run home run, two doubles and three runs scored. Reff hit a grand slam and Golobich homered in support of winning pitcher Tanner Lowe.

Harney Little League took a 5-4 lead after two innings, and lead 8-7 through four innings before Coon Rapids National Little League rallied to take the lead for good in the fifth inning.

Coon Rapids Little League finished the eight-team tournament with a 5-1 record, while Harney Little League was 4-2 in regional play.

The state of Minnesota will be represented for the fourth time in the Little League Baseball World Series. Arden Hills Little League (1995) was the most recent Minnesota state champion to qualify.

Coon Rapids National Little League joins Lubbock Western Little League from Lubbock, Texas; Warner Robins American Little League from Warner Robins, Ga.; Windmills Apeldoorn Little League from the Netherlands; Arabian American Little League from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Pabao Little League of Willemstad, Curacao; 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 remaining U.S. region finals, which will be televised live on ESPN or ESPN2, are: New England (Bristol, Conn., today, 2 p.m., ESPN); Great Lakes (Indianapolis, tonight, 7 p.m., ESPN); West (San Bernardino, Calif., tonight, 9 p.m., ESPN); Northwest (San Bernardino, Calif., Sunday, 10 p.m., ESPN2) and Mid-Atlantic (Bristol, Conn., Monday, 8 p.m., ESPN2). All game times are Eastern U.S. time. The final International Region representative will be decided tonight when the Canada Region Tournament in Regina, Saskatchewan, is scheduled to end.

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.