Alive and well
Auburn, Wash. stays in tournament with 5-2 elimination win over Plymouth, Minn.
Source: South Williamsport, Pa.
Date/Time: Saturday, August 21, 2010, 8:00pm ET
Losing is quite unfamiliar to the All-Stars from Auburn,
Wash. Their manager, Kai Nahaku, wasn’t even sure how they would handle their
3-1 loss to Fairfield, Conn. in their Series-opening game after going a perfect
6-0 in regional play and a stellar 15-0 in All-Star competition overall.
Not only that, they were already facing elimination from the Little League World
Series when they took the field Saturday night against Plymouth, Minn., at
Howard J. Lamade Stadium.
“I didn’t know how they were going to be,” Nahaku said. “Really, they were all
like they didn’t lose. It was more that they were mad at themselves for not
preparing for the game the way they had in the past. Today when we went to warm
up it was a totally different team than when we started yesterday.”
The adversity turned out to be no problem whatsoever. Ikaika Nahaku pitched five
innings of two-run ball, and Casey Manning broke open a 3-2 game with a two-run
homer in the fifth, as Washington (1-1) took a 5-2 decision over Minnesota (0-2)
in the first elimination contest of the Series.
Washington will next play Monday against the loser of Sunday’s Connecticut-Texas
showdown. Minnesota, meanwhile, will play an exhibition crossover game on Monday
against the loser of Sunday’s Germany-Mexico clash.
“It was stressful never losing and then coming in to an elimination game at the
Little League World Series and having to win,” Ikaika Nahaku said.
That stress showed in the bottom of the first inning, when Ikaika fell in a hole
by allowing a pair of Minnesota runs. But he settled down quickly after that,
retiring eight batters in a row at one point until giving up a leadoff single in
the fifth to Josh Thorp. He reached the pitch-count limit after five innings,
and Dillon O’Grady came on in the sixth for the save by retiring the side in
order.
“It was hard to get strikes, but I tried to locate my fastball well,” Ikaika
said. “When I needed to, I threw my curveball for a strike.”
Washington came back to tie it at 2-2 in the third. O’Grady singled home Isaiah
Hatch to cut the deficit in half. O’Grady later scored on Manning’s ground out
to first.
The score remained locked up until the fifth, when O’Grady’s two-out RBI single
made it 3-2. Manning then provided the insurance with his two-run homer to
straightaway center field on an 0-1 offering from Talor Blustin.
“I was very excited,” Manning said when asked about his brisk run around the
bases. “Honestly, I thought it was a pop fly. That’s why I was running so fast.
When I hit it over I was more excited, so I started to run a little faster.”
All four players in the post-game press conference, including Hatch, were
excited for a potential rematch with Connecticut. Ikaiki spoke for the group,
saying, “We really want to bounce back and beat Connecticut. We feel that we
should have won that game and that we were just on our heels and we weren’t
ready.”