Keystone LL Arrives in Williamsport

Keystone LL arrives at the Little League Baseball headquarters.

Keystone Little League from Clinton County, Pa., earned the final spot in the 2011 Little League Baseball World Series today with a 5-2 victory over Paramus (N.J.) Little League in the championship game of the Mid-Atlantic Region Tournament.

Keystone Little League will be making its first appearance in the Little League Baseball World Series.  The county seat for Clinton County (Lock Haven) is located just 28 miles from South Williamsport.  The last area team to play in the World Series was Newberry (Pa.) Little League in 1969.

Keystone Little League joins 10 other 2011 World Series qualifiers who will be making their first appearance.  That list includes: Midwest Region Champion, Harney Little League from Rapid City S.D.; West Region Champion, Ocean View Little League from Huntington Beach, Calif.; Billings (Mont.) Big Sky Little League, the Northwest Region Champion; Cumberland (R.I.) Little League, the New England Region Champion; North Oldham Little League from LaGrange, Ky., the Great Lakes Region Champion; Rotterdam Little League from Rotterdam, Netherlands, the Europe Champion; Gran Maracay Little League from Maracay, Venezuela, the Latin America Champion; Aruba North Little League, from Oranjestad, Aruba, the Caribbean Champion; Asia-Pacific Region Champion Ching-Tang Little League from Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei; and Japan Region Champion Hamamatsu Minami Little League from Hamamatsu City, Japan.

The other five 2011 World Series teams are making return trips.  Lafayette (La.) Little League, the Southwestern Region Champion; Langley (B.C.) Little League, the Canada Region Champion; Warner Robins (Ga.) American Little League, the Southeast Champion; Segura Social Little League from Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, the Mexico Region Champions; and Arabian American Little League from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and Africa representative, are the teams who have played in previous World Series.

The Mid-Atlantic Region Champions will play their first game in the World Series, Aug. 19, against the Great Lakes Champion, North Oldham Little League from La Grange, Ky.

The 65th Little League Baseball World Series, for 11-12-year-olds, will be played in South Williamsport, Pa., Aug. 18-28.  Sixteen teams from around the world will vie for the coveted title of World Champion.

For the first time since the World Series went to 16 teams in 2001, the teams will be split into two eight-team brackets – a U.S. bracket and an International bracket.  For the last 10 years, the 16 teams had been split into four four-team pools.

In addition, this year a modified double-elimination format will be used that eliminates the “if necessary” games from the tournament.

The 2011 World Series is the fifth under an eight-year television contract with ESPN/ABC.  All games of the World Series will be televised live, in high definition, on the ESPN family of networks or ABC.  ABC will air the World Series championship game, Aug. 28 at 3 p.m., and the U.S. and International Championship games the previous day beginning with the International contest at 1 p.m. and the U.S. game to follow.  For the first time, 17 World Series games will air on ESPN 3D this year.

Edogawa Minami Little League from Tokyo became the first champion from Japan since 2003 in last year’s World Series defeating Waipio Little League from Waipahu, Hawaii, 4-1, in the title game.  The win by an International team broke a five-year winning streak by teams from the U.S.  In the 64 years the World Series has been played, there have been 32 U.S. champions and 32 International champions.