Six Home Runs Lift Walpole American Little League to New England Region Championship, Berth in Little League Baseball World Series
PrintWILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Aug. 11, 2007) – Winning pitcher Joseph
Guarino hit the last of Walpole (Mass.) American Little League’s six
home runs in a 14-4, five-inning victory over Shelton (Conn.)
National Little League in the New England Region Championship game
on Saturday at Breen Field in Bristol, Conn.
A two-run home run by Nick Petrovich (3-for-3) put Shelton National
Little League up 2-0 in the top of the first inning. Walpole
American Little League answered with six runs in the bottom of the
inning, highlighted by Michael Rando’s grand slam. In the bottom of
the second inning, back-to-back home runs by Johnny Adams and John
White extended the lead to 8-3. Walpole American recorded 14 hits in
the game.
Adams hit his second home run of the game in the bottom of the
fourth inning to help extend the lead to 12-4. Guarino started the
bottom of the fifth inning with his homer, and Matthew Bender ended
the game via the 10-run mercy rule, scoring on a throwing error.
Teams from Massachusetts have reached the Little League Baseball
World Series eight times, most recently in 2003 when a team from
Saugus qualified. Massachusetts has never been represented in the
Little League Baseball World Series championship game.
Walpole American Little League joins Coon Rapid National Little
League from Coon Rapids, Minn.; 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: 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.
