Illinois vs South Korea: Analyzing Significance of 2014 LLWS Final for Each Team

Seoul, South Korea, defeated Chicago's Jackie Robinson West 8-4 to win the 2014 Little League World Series championship on Sunday. It denied Illinois a bid to produce a first-ever LLWS winner while South Korea saw a fourth native team become champion.

The Asia-Pacific Region titans affirmed their dominance, but not before a valiant rally in the bottom of the sixth from Jackie Robinson West. South Korea had jumped on the U.S. champions with four runs in the top of the inning, but Illinois responded by plating three runs of its own.

Although the comeback bid fell short, there was only going to be one team from Sunday's showdown to emerge victorious. Just to get to this point in Willamsport, Pennsylvania, was a crowning achievement for both sides, marking a significant milestone.

ESPN Stats & Info highlighted the following anecdote that showed there is an apparent gap between the USA and international little league programs:

South Korea becomes the third straight international team to win it all at the Little League World Series, but the disparity may be closing soon. Although it would have been an excellent story for Jackie Robinson West to pull off the upset, it just didn't have quite the firepower to match the superior team from Seoul.

That didn't seem to diminish the team's accomplishments in the eyes of Jackie Robinson's daughter, Sharon Robinson, who shared her thoughts after Sunday's championship game.

"They had already won," said Robinson, per MLB.com's Spencer Fordin. "They won our hearts."

Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel echoed that sentiment once Chicago locked up the U.S. title:

This Little League World Series run by Jackie Robinson West is bound to also provide a boost to the RBI program (Rebuilding Baseball in Inner Cities) that director David James operates. James shared his thoughts about the impact the 2014 Little League World Series could have on the program moving forward, per Fordin's report:

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Across all of baseball, there's been a concern about the rising cost of play and how does it impact underserved kids and underserved communities. We have the RBI leagues and the Urban Youth Academies thanks to Commissioner [Bud] Selig's commitment to making sure that everybody has an opportunity to play, and it's really neat to see that those efforts are coming to fruition.

I absolutely agree with what a lot of other people are saying. The success of the team in Philadelphia and Jackie Robinson West will hopefully be one of the first big steps in encouraging these kids to come back and to see baseball -- and softball, for that matter -- as a viable option for them to play.

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As Sports Media Watch founder Paulsen writes for Sporting News, the Jackie Robinson West team scored the second-highest LLWS TV ratings ESPN has ever recorded during its game against Pennsylvania. Star Philadelphia pitcher Mo'ne Davis helped generate interest with the highest-ever ESPN ratings, but the American team that generated by far the most attention was the one from the Windy City.

And with the impact Jackie Robinson West has had on American youth baseball, the added exposure will only help bolster the game in South Korea.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

That Seoul was able to go out and dominate the game from start to finish is a testament to its talent and should continue to inspire a deep pool of talent to take up baseball for years to come in that country.

SportsCenter noted just how formidable South Korea has been in three LLWS trips:

To go to foreign soil, face the massive expectations and pressure and perform so well at such a young age is no small task. However, it's something the teams from well across the world continue doing with regularity.

There was a lot at stake throughout this tournament, and the team the USA rallied around delivered the goods in a big way. But its opponents, who wound up with the championship banner, deserve a ton of praise for defeating a team that had so much momentum and had already done so much before the two teams took the field on Sunday.