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Chandler National Little League from Arizona Wins the West Region Championship, Earns Trip to 61st Little League Baseball World Series
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (Aug. 11, 2007) – Cody Bellinger drove in four
runs with a two-run homer and two-run double, while winning pitcher
Skyler Palermo helped his own cause with two home runs for Chandler
National Little League from Chandler, Ariz., which won the West
Region Championship, 7-3, Saturday night at Al Houghton Stadium in
San Bernardino, Calif.
Chandler National Little League finished 6-0 in the six-team
regional tournament, and qualified for the 2007 Little League
Baseball World Series by defeating South California representative
Solana Beach Little League.
Bellinger, the second batter in the top of the first inning, put the
Arizona state champions on the scoreboard with an opposite-field
home run off of losing pitcher Daniel Reitzler. Solana Beach Little
League tied the score, 2-2, in the bottom of the second inning on a
two-run home run by Caleb Kreeger.
Palermo’s solo home run in the top of the fourth regained the lead
for Chandler National Little League, and a four-run fifth inning
provided the margin of victory. The Bellinger double and Palermo’s
second home run highlighted the rally.
Teams from Arizona have advanced to the Little League Baseball World
Series five times. In 2005, Ahwatukee American Little League from
Phoenix, Ariz., won the West Region championship.
In its only other Little League Baseball World Series appearance in
2003, Chandler National Little League reached the semifinal round.
Arizona teams from Tucson were Little League Baseball World Series
runners-up in 1973 and 1986. In 1973, Tainan City, Chinese Taipei
defeated Cactus Little League, 12-0, to win the World Series, while
International Little League was beaten by Tainan Park from Chinese
Taipei in the 1986 Little League Baseball World Series championship
game.
Chandler National Little League joins 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 remaining U.S. region finals, which will be televised live on
ESPN2, are: 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.
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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