Little League Softball World Series Day Six Recap
In the final day heading into the championship series, the Southwest Region defeated the Southeast Region, 3-1 and the Central Region outlasted Asia-Pacific, 1-0.
The Central Region will play in the Orange Championship against the hometown team, the North Carolina Region, on Saturday at 2 p.m. EST. The Southeast Region team will play in the Purple Championship against the Mid-Atlantic Region at 5 p.m. EST.
Both games will be given the primetime spotlight on ESPN.
Game 17: Southwest Region, 3; Southeast Region 1
On the purple side of the bracket, the Southwest Region team won in dramatic fashion thanks to the big bat of pitcher Harmoneigh White who barreled a home run ove center field to score two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The Southeast Region struck first and scored its first run in the first inning thanks to a single from Addison Bono. However, the Southwest Region's Bella Hood would single down the left field line and tie up the game in the second inning.
Then the game would come to a scoring halt as the Southwest's White and Southeast's Sam Bradley and Cayden Hugh's found themselves in a pitching battle until the sixth inning.
White, on the game, gave up three hits and only a single run in the first inning; otherwise, she had an effective day with seven strikeouts and three walks.
Bradley and Hugh combined for seven hits, three runs (two earned), only one walk, and five strikeouts. It would be the crucial home run to White late in the day that decided the game and gave the Southwest the edge.
Game 18: Central Region, 1; Asia-Pacific, 0
The Cinderella story of the Asia-Pacific Region team finally concluded on Friday night as the team lost to the Central Region, 1-0. For Asia-Pacific, this was the first time a team had made it this far in the tournament.
The game was dominated by pitching as Central's Briley Mercer and Rinka Nozaki both pitched the entire game for their respective sides.
The lone number was added to the scoreboard in the fourth inning for the Central Region. Kennedy Nickels singled and scored the only run of the game.
Mercer continued her hot streak in the tournament as she only surrendered two hits, two walks, but struck out an impressive 12 Asia-Pacific batters.
Although Nozaki took the loss for Asia-Pacific, she conceded just four hits, one run (earned), one walk, and notched eight strikeouts.
Allison Smith is an expert in leadership and organizational behavior in collegiate and professional women’s sports. Smith is a professor (Georgia State University), researcher, and writer. Smith holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in Kinesiology and Sport Studies. Smith’s research centers on combatting the underrepresentation of women leaders in sport, lack of organizational structure for work life integration for sport employees, and lack of programming and oversight for preparing athletes to transition to life after sport. Since graduating with a bachelor’s in journalism in 2011, Smith has sought opportunities to write about sports as a contributing writer focused on the growth of women’s collegiate, Olympic, and professional sports in this new age and movement for multiple outlets including Athletic Director U, and now Forbes.com. As a former Division I and II pitcher and Division III pitching coach Smith will bring unique insight and expertise to Softball on SI.
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