Oregon State Champion Lake Oswego Little League Wins the Northwest Region Championship, Qualifies for 61st Little League Baseball World Series
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Aug. 12, 2007) – Lake Oswego Little League
from Oregon, scored all of its runs on home runs and winning pitcher
Levi Rudolph shut down the potent bats of Kent (Wash.) Little League
for a 6-2 victory in the Northwest Region Championship game Sunday
night at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino, Calif.
Dueling with Kent Little League’s Dylan Wright (13 strikeouts),
Rudolph held the opposition in check early in the game, and allowed
his teammates to make their five hits count. Brennan Malagamba
opened the scoring with the first of his two home runs, a solo shot
to right field in the top of the second inning. Kent Little League’s
Michael Tanaka answered with a two-run home run in the bottom of the
inning to give his team a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth inning, after a single to left field by Mitch Lomax,
Malagamba homered again to give the lead back to Lake Oswego Little
League, 3-2.
Rudolph scattered five hits and struck out 10 before reaching his
pitch count limit. Calvin Hermanson pitched a scoreless sixth inning
after extending Lake Oswego Little League’s lead to 6-2 in the top
of the inning, with a three-run home run.
Protecting the four-run lead in the bottom of the sixth inning,
Rudolph, now playing center field, pulled back a potential home run
off the bat of Kent Little League’s D.J. Ulmer. Hermanson then threw
a pair of groundball outs to secure the win.
Lake Oswego Little League finished 4-2 in the six-team regional
tournament, and avenged a 14-7 loss to Kent Little League. The
Washington state champions entered the championship game with a 5-0
record and had outscored its opponents, 76-7, including four
shutouts.
By winning the Northwest Region Championship, Lake Oswego Little
League becomes the third team from the state of Oregon to qualify
for the Little League Baseball World Series. The others, Rose City
Little League from Portland in 1958, and last year’s Murrayhill
Little League team from Beaverton, did not reach the world
championship game. Murrayhill Little League lost in the United
States championship game to eventual World Series champion Columbus
Northern Little League from Columbus, Ga.
Lake Oswego Little League joins Chandler National Little League from
Chandler, Ariz.; West Side Little League from Hamilton, Ohio;
Walpole American Little League from Walpole, Mass.; 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.; White Rock-South Surrey Little
League from White Rock, British Columbia, Canada; 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 is carrying 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 final berth in the 61st Little League Baseball World Series will
be decided on Monday when the Mid-Atlantic Region Tournament in
Bristol, Conn., is scheduled to end. The game will be televised on
ESPN2 at 8 p.m. Eastern 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.
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