Louis Lappe crushed a walkoff solo homerun to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning on Sunday afternoon, leading El Segundo Little League (California) to a dramatic 6-5 win over Willemstad, Curacao in the World Series Championship Baseball game in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Lucas Keldorf got the United States Champions from the West Region off to a 2-0 start, lining one that nearly went over the fence in centerfield for a two-run double in the bottom of the first inning. Willemstad (International Champs, Caribbean Region) got on the board in the top of the third with three straight singles, the last of which by Shemar Sophia Jacobus would slice the deficit to a run at 2-1. California though would push their lead to 4-1 in the last half of that third inning on a two-run single by Jaxon Kalish. Crew O’Connor helped extend it to a four run advantage with an RBI single in the fourth. Curacao fought back in the fifth, loading the bases with one out. A big strikeout of Alexander Provacia Roach for out number two followed, but Nasir El-Ossais made it a brand new game taking the second pitch he saw for a grandslam over the fence in right centerfield. The score stayed the same until the bottom of the sixth inning when Lappe led off, absolutely hammering a no-doubter well over the fence in leftfield for his fifth homerun of the tournament and definitely by far the biggest one. It was the first homer that Willemstad allowed during the World Series.
What is traditionally now a matchup of the United States vs International Champion for the World Title, the Americans have now won four straight championships. The tournament wasn’t played in 2020 (COVID-19), and in 2021 Taylor, Michigan won a non-traditional final against Hamilton, Ohio as no international teams could travel still due to the pandemic. Willemstad, Curacao loses in the title matchup for a second straight year, after falling to Honolulu, Hawaii a season ago. Tokyo, Japan was the last international team to win it all in 2017.
Story by Chris Lessner
