The all-star team from El Segundo won the U.S. championship of the Little League World Series Saturday with a 6-1 victory over its counterpart from Needville, Texas — which beat El Segundo on Monday.
El Segundo will play for the world championship Sunday against the all-star team from Willemstad, Curacao, which won the international championship earlier Sunday with a 2-0 victory over its counterpart from Taoyuan, Taiwan.
El Segundo’s Louis Lappe drove in five runs, including a three-run homer off reliever Easton Ondruch in the fifth inning, and limited Needville to three hits and one run over 5 1/3 innings, striking out 10 and walking one.
Lappe singled in two runs in the third before a crowd at Howard J. Lamade Stadium in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania announced at 28,791.
Brody Brooks homered leading off the bottom of the first for El Segundo.
Needville 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.
The victory was the fourth in five days for El Segundo following Monday’s loss to Needville, the Southwest Region champion.
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 their record to 20-2 in five tournaments.
Needville lost to the all-star team from the Hallettsville Little League in its second game in the Texas East Section 4 tournament, 4-3, then defeated the all-star team from the Sweeny Little League, 6-2, and Hallettsville, 19-0, in a game called after three innings because of the run rule, which requires the manager of a team trailing by at least 15 runs through three innings to concede the victory to the opponent.
The Southwest Region champion then defeated Hallettsville, 1-0, to win the tournament.
Needville will face Taoyuan in Sunday’s third-place game.
This was the first time since 1994 that a Los Angeles County team has played in the U.S. championship game. The all-star team from the Northridge Little League won the 1994 U.S. championship with a team including future USC and NFL quarterback Matt Cassel.
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.