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Knocking out Montana Monday in their first elimination game after two straight wins and a loss to open the Little League Junior Division West Region Baseball Tournament in Bend, Oregon, South Pasadena has kept its championship hopes alive.
To avoid an exit from the double elimination tourney, which will ultimately send the winner to the 13-14 Little League World Series, South Pasadena, representing Southern California, must get past Northern California at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
The NorCal unit from Dublin in the San Francisco Bay Area fell to tournament favorite Hawaii 8-0 for its first loss after stringing a pair of victories over Arizona (12-6) and Oregon (14-0).
South Pasadena opened tournament play with convincing wins over Nevada (14-1) and Idaho (7-3) before dropping an 11-1 contest to Washington Sunday, the team’s first loss. The locals rebounded Monday by handing Montana its second tournament defeat, winning easily 10-0.
Should South Pasadena get past Northern California, it would put the SoCal team in position to play Wednesday against the loser of the Washington versus Hawaii game played Tuesday morning.
It also means South Pasadena would face a team that either gave them their initial loss, in Washington, or an Hawaiian club that is just a year removed from winning the Little League World Series on ESPN in Williamsport, Pennsyvania, when they were a group of 12 year olds.
Either way, South Pasadena will be up against tough odds should that take place, but it has no bearing on Tuesday’s contest, a must-win for South Pasadena against a talented Northern California team as it pursues its ultimate quest of winning the Little League Junior Division West Region Baseball Tournament with a title victory on Thursday, opening the door to head to Michigan, representing the west region, in the Junior Division Little League World Series.
All tournament games can be viewed on the app Game Changer. Look for updates to this story.
