Paseo Verde’s dreams of winning the Little League World Series ended Thursday.
Henderson’s team lost 3-6 to Lake Mary, Florida, in an elimination game in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Paseo Verde, the Mountain Region champion, played with a depleted pitching staff and allowed four runs in the first inning. The team responded with three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning but was stopped for the rest of the game by Lake Mary reliever Teraj Alexander.
“It hurts now, but the guys came out as a team and they’re leaving as a team,” said Paseo Verde coach Adam Johnson. “They definitely have to keep their heads up. They played well and represented our area well.”
Paseo Verde finished the tournament 2-2, while Southeast Region champion Lake Mary improved its record to 5-1 and advanced to Saturday’s U.S. championship game against Southwest Region representative Boerne, Texas.
The winner of this competition will advance to Sunday’s title game, which will be played against either Taoyuan City in Chinese Taipei (Asia-Pacific champions) or Barquisimeto in Venezuela (Latin America).
Paseo Verde starter Liam Sparks struggled with control, walking the first three Lake Mary batters before being substituted for reliever Russell McGee. McGee allowed three consecutive hits, including a two-run single by DeMarcos Mieses, before taking the team out of the game with a 4-0 deficit.
“Liam is a great kid,” Johnson said. “He was put in a situation where we felt safe, but things just didn’t go his way.”
Paseo Verde responded by loading the bases with no outs in the bottom half of the inning and increasing the score to 4-3 with RBI singles from Oliver Johnson and Noah Letalu and a sacrifice fly from Parker Soranaka.
“From then on we felt like we were in the game,” Johnson said.
But that was it on offense for Paseo Verde, as Alexander did not allow a scoring opportunity until the sixth inning and allowed three hits and no runs in 3.5 innings.
Alexander “had a weird throw,” Johnson said. “It looked like he was stumbling on every throw.”
After falling behind 6-3 in the middle innings thanks to solo home runs by Lake Mary’s Garrett Rohozen and James Feliciano, Paseo Verde finally ousted Alexander by getting two runners on base with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
But ace Feliciano came in to replace Lake Mary and put McGee out of action with a fly to center field for the last out.
Caleb Gomez scored 2 for 3 runs for Paseo Verde, which finished with seven hits. McGee added a double in the first inning.
Contact Jeff Wollard at [email protected]
