The Westport Little Leaguers said getting to Williamsport for the Little League World Series was a dream come true.
Reaching the United States championship game was pure fantasy — based on how they got there.
Facing a daunting seven-run deficit with just six outs left in their dream summer, the 11- and 12-year old kids from Connecticut pulled out a stunning victory, rallying for a dramatic 14-13 victory over Sammamish, Wash. Friday.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Westport manager Tim Rogers said. “It’s awe-inspiring.”
They rallied for seven runs in the fifth behind a trio of home runs from Chad Knight, Alex Reiner and Max Popken, and won it in the seventh on Knight’s single that scored Christopher Drbal, earning a berth into this afternoon’s United States championship game two days after suffering their first loss of the summer.
Westport is the first local team to reach the U.S. final since the Danny Almonte-led Rolando Paulino All-Stars in 2001, though that team forfeited all of their games for using an overage player.
Westport (21-1) will face Chula Vista, Calif. (3:30 p.m., ABC), which defeated them on Wednesday, 6-3 in nine innings, with a chance to advance to tomorrow’s world title game. Knight, held to 50 pitches in that contest in case an opportunity like this would arise, will get the ball.
Japan and Mexico will battle for the international title earlier in the day.
As has been the case throughout their stay in Williamsport, Westport’s bats were their saving grace. They bashed five home runs and wrapped out 14 hits against four Sammamish hurlers.
Reiner got the rally going in the seventh, drilling a three-run shot, and Popken snapped out of his slump with a two-run blast to right-center before Knight crushed a pitch well beyond the wall in left-center field to pull Westport even at 13.
“It goes to show you anything can happen,” Rogers said. “We were really close to winning against California and real close to losing today. Little League baseball at its finest.”
Co-ace Harry Azadian didn’t have it for Westport, charged with 10 earned runs in 3 2/3 innings pitched. Popken and Reiner did the job in relief, however, combining to deliver 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball.
“For 12-year-old boys, they just stick with it,” Rogers said. “They were cheering each other on, they were telling each other it could get done. I wasn’t thinking it was going to happen, but win or lose, the only thing we ask our kids is to compete every at-bat. No question they did that today.”
“It would’ve been so easy to say the chips aren’t falling our way, we’re going to pack it in. But it was the furthest thing from what we did.”
It sets up Westport, a league which never even won a state title, with the chance to take home the U.S. title. Win or lose, Rogers said he will cherish yesterday’s memories forever.
“My emotions today are less about the win and more about just the competitiveness of the kids,” he said. “If we ended up losing that game by one run, I think I’d feel the same way about them. The fact we won is great and obviously I’m thrilled about that, but the way the kids battled, that’s exactly what we tried to instill in them the last three years.”