Hamilton West Side falls 3-2 to Japan in Little League World Series third-place game
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. —
Hamilton West Side faced their second defeat in a row this weekend at the Little League World Series, keeping them off the tournament’s final podium.
On Sunday, Hamilton faced off in the Little League World Series for the third-place title, narrowly falling 3-2 after a last-minute rally by Japan.
This comes just a day after West Side previously lost 12-2 in the U.S. championship game to Paseo Verde, a team that represented the state of Nevada this year.
The third-place game saw a strong defensive start from both teams in the first three innings as both infields kept one another scoreless. However, it would ultimately be Hamilton who got the first points on the board, emerging with a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning. Despite this, Japan would later come back to win the game with a walk-off in the final inning, scoring three late runs over their American counterparts.
The result brings an end to a once-in-a-lifetime run for Hamilton West Side, a team that took Greater Cincinnati by storm and managed to successfully prove itself as one of the best youth baseball teams in the world as it represented Ohio on the international stage.
To get to the Little League World Series, Hamilton had emerged as champions of the Great Lakes region earlier this month over their fellow competitors in neighboring Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Illinois. They then went on to beat teams representing Massachusetts, Texas, New Jersey, Alabama, and Iowa this week to reach the U.S. championship game.
Their only loss of the month prior to this weekend came from Nevada, which won 6-5 last week in the team’s very first matchup of the Little League World Series. West Side would then go on to survive the elimination bracket with stunning back-to-back victories against all of its opponents to face off once again against Nevada in the U.S. championship game.
The Little League World Series championship game will be played at 3 p.m. on Sunday between Nevada and the international championship winner, Curaçao.