LLWS: Hawaii Crushes Utah For A Rematch With Southern California
Game nine of the Little League West Regionals consist of two teams looking to seal their seat in the championship game between a re-match with the Sweetwater Valley Little League (SoCal team).
Utah is coming off a brutal lost from the SoCal, as Hawaii is coming off a two game winning streak, as they sailed right through the losing bracket of the West Regionals.
Utah took the field first as the home team, and gave the ball to Carston Herman to handle the pitching duties.
Hawaii got the first at bats as the away team, and started it off with Vance Oshiro leading off the game with a single.
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Which was followed by another single from Brayden Hiraki, who hit a hard bullet through the pitchers glove, and right to the second baseman, but was too late to make a play.
Vance Oshiro and Brayden Hiraki then advanced on a wild pitch, to put both of them in scoring position,
With no outs on the board, Hunter Sasaki brings in Vance Oshiro and Brayden Hiraki, with a single to center field.
Hawaii leads 2-0.
Vincent Ogasawara then grounded out to the second baseman for the first out of the evening, but advanced Hunter Sasaki to second base.
Charles Winchester hits a double to deep left to bring in Hunter Sasaki from third, and Sage-Manuel Koahou continues the hitting carousel with a single to center, to bring in another run.
Hawaii leads 4-0.
Carston Herman then retires the side with back to back strikeouts, to give Utah a chance to respond.
Hawaii handed the pitching duties over to Joshua Reis, who retires the first three Utah batters in a 1-2-3 inning.
Inning Highlight: Hawaii’s second baseman (Vance Oshiro) makes a spartacular leaping catch for the second out of the inning.
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In the top of the second, Hawaii started the inning with two quick outs from Utah’s pitching and defense, but was tormented before they got the last out of the inning.
Joshua Reis leads off with a strikeout, and Vance Oshiro flys out to the shortstop.
Carston Herman then walks Louis Holt, who scores on the following at bat, as Hunter Sasaki hits a 2-run shot to center.
Hawaii leads 6-0.
Vincent Ogasawara continues the hitting carousel with a single to left field, and scores on the following play as Charles Winchester doubles to center field to increase Hawaii’s lead to seven.
Brayden Hiraki replaces Charles Winchester as a pinch runner, and crosses home plate with a double from Trey Apana-Purcell.
Hawaii leads 8-0.
Mason Strong takes over pitching duties for Utah, and gives up another Hawaii run. As Trey Apana-Purcell advances off a wild pitch, and scores from a single from Reyce Kajiwara.
Hawaii leads 9-0.
Mason Strong then gets the last out of the inning, striking out Brock Yashiro.
Utah and their following at bats went 1-2-3, but in an unusual way.
Jake Johnson popped out to the shortstop, and Braxton Hickman responded with a single right off the arm of Hawaii’s first baseman, in an unusual miss from Hawaii’s defense.
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Hawaii’s defense then answered with a spectacular double play from the right field to first base.
Isaac Lyon flys out to the right fielder, and Braxton Hickman is thrown out at first by the right fielder to end the bottom of the second inning.
Joshua Reis leads off the top of the third with a solo homerun to increase the lead to 10-0, but it didn’t stop there.
Hawaii ended up adding five more runs to their lead, until Utah struck out the last two batters to end the big inning.
Hawaii leads 15-0.
With Hawaii having enough runs for the mercy rule, the game still has to go until the fourth inning in order for the game to be over.
So, Hawaii would have to be winning by ten at the end of the fourth, and that’s what happened.
Hawaii replaces Joshua Reis with Trey Apana-Purcell in the bottom of the third,
Trey Apana-Purcell retires the first two batters he faced, but gave up a triple to Tanner Truman, and a walk to Jackson Ence. To put runners on first and third, and give the kids from Snow Canyon Little League something to cheer about, but Mason Strong popped out to the first baseman.
Utah then limited Hawaii to only one hit in the top of the fourth, to keep the margin of deficit from increasing.
To keep the game alive. Utah would have to score six runs in the bottom of the fourth, but Hawaii wasn’t going to let that happened. So they made a pitching change.
Charles Winchester replaces Trey Apana-Purcell to get the last three outs of the game.
Charles Winchester leads off the inning with a walk to Landon Frei, but gets out on the next play as Easton Rigby hits into a 1-6-3 double play, and gets Braxton Hickman to hit into a 4-3 groundout to end the game.
Hawaii will now play SoCal at 6:00 PM Saturday night in a re-match game, that will decide who will represent the West in the LLWS in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.