The all-star team from the La Verne Little League will again try to avoid elimination in the Little League Softball World Series Friday, facing its counterpart from the Pitt County Girls Softball Little League in a rematch of the openers for both teams.
La Verne defeated Pitt County, 9-2, Tuesday, with Katie Coldiron allowing two runs, both unearned, and three hits over five innings. She also doubled in a run during La Verne’s three-run second inning, its lone extra-base hit.
La Verne avoided elimination Thursday with a 7-1 victory over the all-star team from the Issaquah Little League of Issaquah, Washington, scoring six runs in the sixth and final inning to break a 1-1 tie. Pitt County avoided elimination later Thursday with an 8-0 victory over the all-star team from the Guayama Softball Little League of Guayama, Puerto Rico, the Latin American champion.
The game was the first for the North Carolina champion since its loss to La Verne. Pitt County, based in Winterville, North Carolina, earned a spot in the World Series as the host region champion.
Friday’s game will begin at 7 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and be streamed on ESPN+.
Six teams from the original field of 12 will remain in contention for the championship at the conclusion of Friday’s play. The tournament being played in Greenville, North Carolina is set to conclude Monday.
Issaquah, the Northwest Region champion, opened the scoring against La Verne Thursday in the bottom of the first when Hadlie Delucchi tripled with two outs and scored on a throwing error by Zoey Colburn, the La Verne right fielder.
Coldiron limited Issaquah to two hits for the remainder of the game, a third-inning single by Shaelyn Erickson and a sixth-inning single by Giorgia Graham. She struck out four and walked three.
After Erickson retired each of the first nine La Verne batters, the West Region champion tied the score in the top of the fourth.
Laila Washington led off with a single. With one out and Ryan Torres at the plate, Washington stole second, advanced to third on a passed ball two pitches later and scored on the next pitch when Torres hit a line drive that went off the glove of first baseman Shaina Starnicky for a single.
La Verne combined two errors, two run-scoring fielder’s choices, singles by Coldiron and Colburn, who re-entered the game as a pinch-hitter, an intentional walk to Torres and a sacrifice fly by Kylie Chavez for its runs in the sixth inning.
La Verne was relegated to the elimination bracket in the modified double-elimination tournament after losing 6-1 Wednesday to the all-star team from the Chesterfield Little League of Chesterfield, Virginia, the Southeast Region champion.
La Verne is attempting to become the fourth team from Los Angeles County to win the World Series, and the first since 1990 when the all-star team from the Foothill Little League in Glendale won. Los Angeles County’s other two champions were also from Glendale.