Louisiana’s Big Little Leaguers
August 28, 2019
On Sunday, August 25, an all-star baseball team from River Ridge, Louisiana, won the Little League World Series (LLWS), defeating a team from Willemstad, Curaçao, 8-0. (River Ridge is a suburb of New Orleans. Curaçao is an island in the Caribbean Sea.) The LLWS is a competition played each year in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, among kids aged 11 to 13. The tournament, first played in 1947, includes 16 Little League teams from the United States and the rest of the world. Little League Baseball is the world’s largest organized youth-sports program, with nearly 180,000 teams.
Louisiana’s Eastbank Little League all-stars pose with the LLWS championship banner on Aug. 25, 2019. Credit: Courtesy of Little League Baseball and Softball
The ballplayers from Louisiana’s Eastbank Little League dominated the LLWS final at South Williamsport’s Howard J. Lamade Stadium. Starting pitcher Egan Prather went the distance, limiting the Curaçao team to just two hits and no runs over the game’s six innings. Egan fanned six batters and surrendered just two walks. On the offensive side, Louisiana busied the bases with 10 hits and 5 walks. Louisiana outfielder Reece Roussel scored three runs and had two hits, giving him a record-setting 17 hits in the LLWS (in just 23 at-bats—a .739 batting average). Third baseman Marshall Louque drove in three runs while going 3 for 3. Curaçao starter Kevin Rosina gave up three runs in four innings. Reliever í-Zion Mogen allowed five runs in his two innings. Louisiana played flawless defense, and Prather recorded the final out in the sixth on an infield line drive.
Little League World Series Logo.
Credit: © Little League
After a joyful celebration beside the pitcher’s mound, members of the Louisiana team thanked their Curaçaoan opponents. They then raced to the center field wall to rub the bronze bust of the stadium’s namesake, Howard J. Lamade—a longstanding tradition for the winning team. (Lamade was a Pennsylvania newspaper publisher and a key figure in the early years of Little League Baseball.)
The Eastbank all-stars rolled through the United States bracket of the tournament, winning all five of their games by a combined score of 36-8, including a 9-5 win over Central East Maui Little League (Hawaii) to reach the LLWS final. The championship was the first for the state of Louisiana. The Pabao Little League squad from Willemstad, Curaçao, fought through the tough international tournament, edging the all-stars from Chofu City, Japan, 5-4 to reach the final. Curaçao’s only LLWS title came in 2004. The 2019 tournament’s 32 games drew a total of some 300,000 fans.
