As the sun shone down on Al Houghton Stadium, our young teams began their fight for a ticket to Williamsport and a chance to compete at the Little League World Series. August 2 concluded the first day of gameplay for the Little League West Regionals.
Arizona and Northern California took the fields first, with Arcadia Little League representing Arizona and Alpine Little League representing NorCal. Both teams remained scoreless for the first four innings, until Arizona put one run on the board in the fifth inning.
An eager NorCal team immediately responded in the sixth inning with their last at-bats. Garrett Weiss was the first to score, and Nolan Levinson drove in three additional runs. Levinson was also able to score on a pop fly to left field.
The final score of the game was NorCal five to Arizona's one.
The second game of the day was between Hawaii and Southern California. Hawaii was represented by Honolulu Little League, and your SoCal team was represented by Golden Hill Little League from Fullerton. Both teams fought hard, but Hawaii ultimately won by one run and one hit. The final score was 1-0.
With Bentley Itagake on base after being walked, he was able to score Hawaii’s only run after a double by Bronson Fermahin. I spoke with Fermahin on what he saw at the plate during his hit.
“I was looking for a fastball down the middle, but it was, like, one slider, up and out. I just, like, swung and I got a hit.”
Manager, Gerald Oda, spoke about his feelings on the game.
“Just very happy this guy got his hit, and did great on the mound. We’re just very fortunate the baseball gods smiled on us. What a day… The one benefit of coming here before, you know, it helps us because we know what to expect. We know there’s going to be a big crowd, we know we’re playing Southern California first, so we know the pressure’s going to be notched up tremendously.”
Arizona and SoCal will compete August 4 at 9 a.m. to see who advances and who is eliminated. NorCal and Hawaii will compete at 6 p.m. to see who is sent to the championship.
Follow along for bracket updates.
