Washington Little League Baseball team wins, goes to World Series

Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this story stated the incorrect date of the Little League Baseball regional championship game between the teams from Washington and Idaho. The story has been updated.

The South Hill team from Puyallup defeated West Valley of Idaho 13-7 Thursday night to advance to the Little League Baseball World Series.

The Little League Baseball Northwest Region championship game featured significant drama as South Hill was trailing 6-5 in the top of the sixth inning and was down to its last strike before erupting for an 8-run rally with two outs to put the game out of reach.

Idaho scored one run in the bottom of the sixth inning and had the bases loaded with two outs before a flyout caught in the outfield foul ground by South Hill ended the game and led to a huge celebration at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino, California.

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Leading up to the Little League regional title game

South Hill had been strong throughout the regional tournament, winning their last three games to advance to Williamsport. The team from Puyallup faced off against West Valley and teams from Oregon and Alaska as well.

The event didn’t start well for South Hill, however, as the opener last Saturday produced a thrilling game, but a West Valley win by a final score of 6-4.

“We’ve been together for five years, we believe in everybody and a couple of times this summer we’ve been down by more than that and we came back,” West Valley player Owen Westley said on ESPN.

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South Hill’s loss moved the team to the losers’ bracket and they haven’t lost since.

On Monday, South Hill beat Abbott-O-Rabbit of Alaska 11-4.

Then, Wednesday afternoon the team from Puyallup defeated Bend North of Oregon 14-5. Their second consecutive win earned the young team a place in the regional championship game.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here. 

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.