Henderson team ousted from Little League World Series — PHOTOS
Paseo Verde’s dreams of a Little League World Series championship came to an end Thursday.
The Henderson team fell to Lake Mary, Florida, 6-3 in an elimination game in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Playing with a depleted pitching staff, Paseo Verde, the Mountain Region champion, gave up four runs in the first inning. It answered with three of its own in the bottom of the inning, but was shut down the rest of the way by Lake Mary reliever Teraj Alexander.
“It hurts right now, but those boys showed up as a team and they’re leaving as a team,” Paseo Verde coach Adam Johnson said. “They definitely need to have their heads up. They played well, and they represented our area well.”
Paseo Verde finished the tournament at 2-2, while Southeast Region champ Lake Mary improved to 5-1 to advance to Saturday’s U.S. championship game against Southwest Region representative Boerne, Texas.
The winner of that contest will advance to Sunday’s title game against either Taoyuan City of Chinese Taipei (Asia-Pacific champ) or Barquisimeto, Venezuela (Latin America).
Paseo Verde starter Liam Sparks struggled with control, walking the first three Lake Mary batters before being pulled for reliever Russell McGee. McGee gave up three consecutive hits, including a two-run single by DeMarcos Mieses, before retiring the side with his team down 4-0.
“Liam’s a great kid,” Johnson said. “He was put in a situation where we felt confident, but things just didn’t go his way.”
Paseo Verde answered by loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the inning and making it 4-3 on RBI singles by Oliver Johnson and Noah Letalu and a sacrifice fly by Parker Soranaka.
“We felt like we were in the game from there on,” Johnson said.
But that was it for Paseo Verde offensively, as Alexander allowed no scoring threats until the sixth inning, giving up three hits and no runs in 3⅔ innings.
Alexander “had a funky delivery,” Johnson said. “It looked like he tripped every time in his delivery.”
After falling behind 6-3 on solo homers by Lake Mary’s Garrett Rohozen and James Feliciano in the middle innings, Paseo Verde finally chased Alexander by putting two runners on base with two outs in the bottom of the sixth.
But ace Feliciano came on in relief for Lake Mary, retiring McGee on a fly to center field for the final out.
Caleb Gomez went 2-for-3 with a run scored for Paseo Verde, which finished with seven hits. McGee added a first-inning double.
Contact Jeff Wollard at jwollard@reviewjournal.com
