Championship Down The Drain

The Central Iowa Little League all-star softball team saw its chance at a world championship come to an end but not before a wave of support as well as an outpouring of outrage made headlines on all major TV and Radio stations around the world.

The Polk City squad reached the semi-final round of the Little League Softball World Series in Portland before falling 5-4 to East regional champion’s from Warwick Rhode Island.

It’s not the loss that everyone will remember however as it will be etched on the national landscape will be a 3-2 triumph over West champion Snohomish in a makeshift tiebreaker game that came to being following a “tons” of controversy..

South Snohomish Little League was unbeaten which had been 3-0, managed to lose to North Carolina team and was no-hit in the process.

Some believed that South Snohomish had lost the game (on purpose) to keep Iowa from advancing into the bracket portion of the tournament.

It is reported that the team told some of the starters to take the day off, but when other players were used, it is reported that they were told to “only bunt the ball” and not try to hit it out of the park.

Hearing of this ploy the team from Iowa filed a protest, but the officials in charge of the Little League Softball World Series did not overturn the outcome.

Thinking this was unjust they (the team from Iowa) appealed to the governing body, Little League International, which ruled that a special 11 A.M. game would be played.

The organization told the media “The Little League International Tournament Committee recently received credible reports that some teams did not play with the effort and spirit appropriate for any Little League game.”

Given all of the circumstances, the release states the governing body was requiring “that a tie-breaker game be played between the two affected teams — South Snohomish Little League and Central Iowa Little League.”

The extra game saw Iowa erase a 2-1 deficit by scoring two runs in the top of the third inning on an RBI double and a Washington error to take its deciding advantage.

Mikayla Houge the Iowa pitcher recorded six strike-outs over the final three innings and 11 on the morning helping seal the victory and eliminate the squad from Snohomish.

Washington stranded a pair of runners in both the third and fourth innings, but did not have a hitter reach base in the final two frames.

Tuesday night’s semi-final game failed to get the national attention of the morning match-up, but there was lots of drama from start to finish.

Entering the fourth inning Iowa held a 2-1 lead but Warwick scored four runs with two outs, with the biggest being an opposite-field single by Alyssa Richard that gave the team from Rhode Island the lead.

Warwick added runs on a wild pitch and an error to take a 5-2 that they managed to hold until the sixth inning.

Iowa made a comeback attempt by scoring two runs on a pair of swinging bunt singles to get them within 5-4 score.

The Central region had two runners on base with one out before Rhode Island pitcher Emily Carter got swinging strikeouts ending the game.

The South Snohomish Little League released a statement about their part in the scandal in an email from the league’s president Jeff Taylor:

“The South Snohomish Little League would first like to thank our community and our families that have continued to provide support and encouragement to our young softball girls.

They have been through a gauntlet the last 24 hours and have had a very difficult and emotional time.