Eagles take a thumping
First game at Little League World Series doesn’t go East Nepean’s way, but team has chance to win Saturday
There’s a number of reasons why Chinese Taipei holds the record for the most Little League World Series titles in the history of the event at 17.
One of them is they can always hit and play long ball and the Canadian-champion East Nepean Eagles found that out the hard way Friday.
The heavily-favoured AsiaPacific representatives battered East Nepean pitching for 13 hits — three of them home runs and five more for doubles — to rout the upstart Eagles before a large crowd at Volunteer Stadium in Williamsport, Penn..
The Eagles will have little time to lick their wounds, as they have a likely meeting with the Czech Republic Saturday at 6 p.m. The Czech Republic is making its first ever appearance at the Little League World Series and drew the heavily-favoured Japanese in their opening game later Friday night.
East Nepean was behind all the way against the ChineseTaipei squad, as starter and ace Angus Adams retired the first hitter he faced only to give up a single to the No. 2 hitter and a walk to the third batter he faced.
That set the table for lefthanded cleanup hitter Shih- Che Chou, and he smoked an Adams offering out of Volunteer Park in straightaway centre field to give the opposition all the offence it would need.
Chou, simply, has no holes in his swing, and he just missed a second home run in the second inning, nailing one off the centre-field wall for a double following Huai-Chien Lan’s two-run homer off reliever Caden Griffin. Chou finished the day with three hits and seven total bases.
“They can hit,” said Eagles head coach Mark Keeping. “I can’t tell you how many games our pitchers have struck out six, seven or eight in a game. (Friday) we didn’t register one. They were patient too.
“Angus was a little loose and wasn’t hitting his spots. Then he got locked in a battle with (Chou) and tried to move the ball around and (Chou) just wouldn’t give in.”
Down so early, Keeping was forced to manage the strength of his pitching staff due to Little League pitch count rules. Both Adams and No. 2 man Ken Nguyen retired only two hitters each, so Nguyen will get the call in Saturday’s game.
The lefty Griffin and Clay Surrett followed and did all they could to keep the Eagles in the game. Even down 5-0, East Nepean didn’t roll over.
The Eagles’ bats finally came to life against righthander Tung-Jua Yeh in the fourth, when David Legault singled to start the inning and Adams drilled a no-doubtabouthome run over the tree beyond the centre-field wall to cut the deficit to 5-2.
The optimism for a comeback didn’t last long, however, as Chinese Taipei answered with a five-run bottom of the fourth.
“The success we had in the fifth and sixth shutting them down and some of the plays we made picked us up,” said Keeping. “We were pretty down early on. We’re not used to failure and the kids were upset. But they battled through.
“Once it was over, they were back up, wondering if they could go out for dinner with their parents. Or back to the stadium to watch a game. Or out for ice cream. They recovered quickly.
“And now we have what we consider a winnable game (Saturday) and we’ll see what we can do.”