SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — For the second straight day, a line drive found the glove of Louisiana shortstop Stan Wiltz and a dogpile ensued in the infield at Lamade Stadium. Wiltz was fine with all that.
Nothing seemed to go wrong for the boys from River Ridge over the last week at the Little League World Series, and Wiltz’s catch ended the game and the tournament Sunday, with Louisiana shutting out Curacao 8-0 to win the state’s first title.
“It felt like my glove was a magnet,” said Wiltz, who got his team into the final with a game-ending unassisted double play Saturday against Hawaii.
The team from suburban New Orleans came back through the losers’ bracket after dropping its opening game of the tournament to Hawaii. Louisiana won six games in eight days, becoming the first team to win the championship after dropping its first game since the tournament expanded in 2001.
“People from New Orleans and Louisiana in general are very resilient type of people,” Manager Scott Frazier said. “And this team exemplifies the resiliency that we have from the area that we come from.”
Frazier said he felt the momentum shift for his team beat Oregon for its first victory of the tournament. That was followed by wins over some of the tournament’s best teams – New Jersey, Virginia, Hawaii and Curacao.
“Once we won that game (against Oregon), it was just a matter of getting on a roll,” Frazier said.
Egan Prather tossed a two-hit shutout Sunday, throwing 88 pitches over six innings. His performance capped a solid tournament – he picked up two victories and struck out 19 in 14 1/3 innings.
“It makes my job really easy to mix up pitches when they can execute the pitches,” Frazier said. “Everything worked for him today.”
The breakthrough came in the fifth inning when Louisiana scored four runs on four hits to seize control. Reece Roussel smacked an RBI double that was followed by Marshall Louque’s RBI single, his third hit of the day.
“We were going to get those guys, it was just a matter of time,” Frazier said. “We’ve been so locked in this whole time.”
U.S. teams have won back-to-back titles for the first time since 2009, when a team from Chula Vista, California, capped a streak of five straight championships for the United States.
Japan captured third place in the tournament by defeating Hawaii 5-0 in the consolation game.
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