Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought.
“It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game.
Photo: Gene J. Puskar, AP
Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games.
“There is a saying in Taiwan that it takes 10 years to sharpen a sword,” he said.
Lai said he discovered the group of young players two years ago and the LLBWS again.
Photo: AP
Ace pitcher Lin Chin-tse (林晉擇), who can throw 80mph (129kph), carried a perfect game into the fifth inning, retiring the first 13 batters he faced.
He threw 58 pitches over five innings, allowing one hit and no walks while striking out four.
At the plate, Lin also drove in three runs with a triple during Taiwan’s five-run fifth inning.
Photo: AP
“I am very excited,” he said. “In the first inning I was nervous, but after that it was smooth.”
Reliever Chen Qi-sheng (陳啟盛) pitched the sixth to seal the shutout.
It was Taiwan’s 18th title overall, the most of any country beside the US.
Taiwan won five straight championships from 1977 to 1981 in the annual tournament, which features half its teams from the US and half from abroad.
Representing the Asia-Pacific region, Dong Yuan advanced by beating Aruba 1-0 in Saturday’s international final. Las Vegas, also on Saturday, won the US championship 8-2 over Fairfield, Connecticut.
Last year, Taiwan’s Guishan Elementary School from Taoyuan finished runners-up.
The most recent international champion before Sunday were Japan in 2017.
In Taipei, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the players for their outstanding performance.
In a post on social media, Lai said: “My warmest congratulations to Tung-Yuan Little League, our @LittleLeague World Series champions! Representing the Asia-Pacific, you’ve made the region proud & marked a new chapter in #Taiwan’s baseball story for the whole world to see — Three cheers for the team!⚾”
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