last year\u2019s SoCal champion<\/a> \u2013 Fullerton\u2019s Golden Hill Little League \u2013 in the opener and posted back-to-back shutouts to start the tournament before going on to outscore opponents 21-2 over the five games.<\/p>\n\u201cThis group is incredible,\u201d Winnick said. \u201cI coached them last year (and) I don\u2019t even have a kid on the team, but I\u2019m here to help them because I love them and I love baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The blowout victory over Encino in the SoCal title game was played at Al Houghton Stadium, site of the West Region tournament, giving the SVLL players and coaches a preview of the week ahead already having experienced arrival, time in the barracks, the march to the field, warmups and games in front of an elevated crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming back here to win,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n
It was 100 degrees at first pitch last Sunday and temperatures will approach triple digits again this week at the Little League Western Region Headquarters, which concurrently hosts the West, Northwest and Mountain Region tournaments beginning Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be hot so it\u2019s a big mental thing,\u201d Winnick said. \u201cBut if we say, \u2018We\u2019re good\u2019, then we\u2019re good. We can handle anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
SVLL takes on Northern California champion San Ramon Valley LL from Danville in the West Region opener at noon. Arizona\u2019s Chandler National LL faces off against first-time Hawaii champion Kawaihai Community LL at 3 p.m. on the other side of the double-elimination tournament.<\/p>\n
Hawaiian teams have won four of the past five West Region tournaments, with Honolulu LL winning three titles since 2021. Kawaihau Community is the first Hawaiian champion from the island of Kauai.<\/p>\n
Lone Peak LL (Alpine, Utah) plays Coal Creek LL (Lafayette, Colo.) to kick off the Mountain Region tournament on Saturday at noon. Big Sky LL (Billings, Mont.), Paseo Verde LL (Henderson, Nev.) and Wyoming\u2019s Laramie LL fill out the five-team region. Nevada has produced each of the past three winners.<\/p>\n
In the Northwest Region beginning Sunday, West Valley (Eagle, Idaho) squares off against Abbott-o\u2019-Rabbit (Anchorage, Alaska) before Soundview LL (Tacoma, Wash.) gets a cross-border battle with Oregon\u2019s Bend North LL. Washington\u2019s champion has gone on to capture each of the past five Northwest titles.<\/p>\n
All games will be broadcast across ESPN networks.<\/p>\n
Little League West Region<\/p>\n
Game 1: Southern California (Sweetwater Valley, Bonita) vs. Northern California (San Ramon Valley, Danville)<\/p>\n
When: Sunday, noon<\/p>\n
Where: Al Houghton Stadium, San Bernardino<\/p>\n
How to watch: ESPN+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN BERNARDINO \u2014 The greater San Diego area has been well represented at the Little League West Region…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[109481,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-427607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-little-league","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}