The all-star team from El Segundo will play for Little League’s world championship Sunday in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, facing its counterpart from the Pabao Little League in Willemstad, Curacao.
Jaxon Kalish is expected to pitch for El Segundo, manager Danny Boehle told ABC. Kalish started El Segundo’s 5-3 victory over the all-star team from the Nolensville (Tennessee) Little League Wednesday, allowing two runs and two hits in three innings, striking out four and walking three. He did not figure in the decision.
El Segundo will be playing for the sixth time in seven days. Willemstad will be playing for the fifth time in seven days.
El Segundo earned a spot in the world championship game with a 6-1 victory in Saturday’s U.S. championship game over the all-star team from Needville, Texas, which beat El Segundo on Monday.
Willemstad, the Caribbean Region champion, won the international championship earlier Saturday with a 2-0 victory over its counterpart from the Kuei-Shan Little League in Taoyuan, Taiwan, the Asia-Pacific Region champion, avenging a 9-1 loss Wednesday.
The noon Pacific Daylight Time game from Howard J. Lamade Stadium will be televised by ABC. A watch party will be held at Rock & Brews El Segundo.
This will be the first time since 1994 that a Los Angeles County team has played for the world championship. The all-star team from the Northridge Little League, which included future USC and NFL quarterback Matt Cassel, lost 4-3 to the all-star team from the Coquivacoa Little League in Maracaibo, Venezuela, which included future San Francisco Giants pitcher Yusmeiro Petit, the first player to win both the Little League World Series and World Series.
Los Angeles County teams have won the Little League World Series three times. The all-star team from the Granada Hills National Little League won in 1963 and teams from the Long Beach Little League won in 1992 and 1993.
This is the fifth time a team from Curacao has advanced to the championship game, all from the Pabao Little League. Willemstad won in 2004, but lost in 2005, 2019 and 2022.
El Segundo’s Louis Lappe limited Needville to three hits and one run over 5 1/3 innings Saturday, striking out 10 and walking one. He also drove in five runs, including a three-run homer off reliever Easton Ondruch in the fifth inning.
“Once you hit it, sometimes you know it’s going out and that one I knew it was going out as soon as I hit it,” Lappe told ABC.
Lappe singled in two runs in the third before a crowd at Howard J. Lamade Stadium announced at 28,791.
Brody Brooks homered leading off the bottom of the first for El Segundo, went 3-for-3 and scored three runs.
Needville, the Southwest Region champion, scored its run in the top of the fifth as D.J. Jablonski led off with a double, advanced to third on an error by center fielder Max Baker and scored on a wild pitch by Lappe.
Jablonski was charged with the loss, allowing four runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked three.
Jablonski limited El Segundo to four hits and one run in 5 1/3 innings in a 3-1 victory Monday, with the only run coming on Lappe’s first-inning home run.
El Segundo is 19-2 in five tournaments this summer. The West Region champions’ other loss was to the all-star team from the Sherman Oaks Little League, 4-3, in the opening game of the championship series of the Southern California State Tournament on July 31. It won the rematch, 3-2, later that day.
The loss ended a 14-game winning streak for Needville and dropped its record to 20-2 in five tournaments.
Needville and Taoyuan will play in third-place game at 8 a.m. that will be televised by ESPN.