Louis Lappe crushed a walk-off home run to left field and California won its eighth Little League World Series in dramatic fashion with a 6-5 victory over Curacao in the championship game Sunday afternoon in South Williamsport, Pa.
The team from El Segundo, Calif., advanced past Texas 6-1 in Saturday’s U.S. championship game to set up the meeting with Willemstad, Curacao, which lost its second straight final and third in four tournaments.
California led 5-1 when Curacao loaded the bases in the top of the fifth and Nasir El-Ossais hit a game-tying grand slam to center field.
Lappe was first to the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning and connected on the second pitch of the at-bat, sending the ball to deep left and launching an immediate celebration. It was the infielder’s tournament-best fifth home run.
“I was just looking for a good pitch to hit and my mentality was just get the next guy up,” Lappe said in an ABC postgame interview. “If we kept doing that, we would’ve won either way, but I’ll take the homer.”
Ollie Parks started for California and went 4 1/3 innings with just two earned runs, four hits and six strikeouts. Brody Brooks struck out two in the top of the sixth to earn the win.
California won the Little League World Series for the first time since 2011. It has earned more LLWS titles than any other state.
–Field Level Media