The 2024 Little League World Series championship went down to the wire in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Sunday, as the kids from Florida came from behind to win 2-1 in extra innings vs. Chinese Taipei.
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Lake Mary, Florida was the team that represented the Southeast region of America, and after multiple comeback wins in the tournament, they found themselves facing the 17-time LLWS champion Taiwanese squad.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Florida was trailing 1-0, and there were two outs with a runner on first and second base. That is to say, down to their last chance, the young hitter came up with a clutch RBI-single, which tied it up at 1-1 to let the game go into extras.
EXTRAS IN WILLIAMSPORT‼️
Florida ties it up while down to their final out 🍿 pic.twitter.com/E0W9CQTLpP
— ESPN (@espn) August 25, 2024
Fast forward to the eighth inning, as per the new rules, which is similar to the way the MLB has it set up, a runner is placed on second base as the inning starts.
Chinese Taipei was unable to get the runner across, so as the home team, all Florida needed was to get the guy on second base to score. With this in mind, the coach told the lead-off hitter to bunt in order to move the runner over to third base, hoping to give themselves a sacrifice fly opportunity.
In view of this, Chinese Taipei had a miscommunication mistake as the first baseman and pitcher both came into field the bunted ball, and because no one was covering first, it resulted in the game ending on a wild throw.
NOBODY IS AT FIRST BASE AND FLORIDA WINS THE LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES
pic.twitter.com/wq2shJ7izM— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 25, 2024
To add to the already late-game dramatics making this an instant classic, the in-game microphones picked up audio of the Florida team's head coach assuring his players that they were going to win the game, as he cited because of divine intervention it was evidently meant to be.
"Oh what a story it's going to be boys this inning," coach John Anderson said to his team before they batted in the bottom of the last inning. "One of the first days we got here, I came down here, a man prayed over me, okay. He saw my dad later, and he said it's already been written. We are already the champs, the Lord put it in his book, we are just going to finish the story, right here, right now."
"Stay calm, stay composed, stay within yourself, but understand it's already been written," Anderson emphasized. "It's already ours, we just have to finish it here, we just have to play this inning... here we go, it's our summer, it's our game, we are going to come out on top. Are we ready?"
Florida coach spoke it into existence 🔥 pic.twitter.com/D5i3sayrv1
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) August 25, 2024
Just as it was written, it happened, so as a result of the team's incredible comeback win, manager John Anderson received a gatorade shower from his players.
To point out, this was the first year that a team from Florida claimed victory at the LLWS, as they previously lost the title game eight different times.
Notably, this is also the second straight year that the LLWS championship game was decided on a game-winning hit, as some might remember last year when California defeated Curacao 6-5 with a walk-off home run.
CALIFORNIA WINS THE #LLWS WITH A WALK-OFF HOME RUN FROM LOUIS LAPPE 😱 pic.twitter.com/5iPMjaaBWj
— ESPN (@espn) August 27, 2023
After winning both of the last two years in dramatic fashion, U.S. little league teams have now won the tournament 40 times, compared to international countries who have 37 LLWS championships.
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