Little League World Series Regionals 2017: Saturday Scores and Bracket Results

The 2017 Little League World Series regionals continued Saturday, with the Southeast and Southwest regions entering their third and fourth days of play, respectively.

The road to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, ended Friday for teams from Arkansas and Mississippi after they lost their second games of the qualifying round. The same fate will befall one of Alabama or Virginia after both states were defeated Friday.

Below is an overview from Saturday's United States regional action.

Saturday Scores

Southeast: North Carolina (North State) def. South Carolina (Greenville), 9-2

Southeast: Tennessee (Goodlettsville Baseball) def. Georgia (Peachtree City National), 12-3

Southwest: Texas East (McAllister Park National) def. Texas West (Lufkin), 11-10 (seven innings)

Southeast: Alabama (Ladonia Youth Sports) def. Virginia (Fort Hunt), 5-4

Southwest: Louisiana (Eastbank) def. New Mexico (Eastdale), 11-1

Saturday Recap

North Carolina def. South Carolina, 9-2

In a game that was originally scheduled for Friday, North Carolina beat South Carolina 9-2 on the strength of an excellent combined showing from the North State Little League pitching staff.

Six different pitchers took the mound for North Carolina, and they limited South Carolina to two hits while collecting 12 strikeouts. 

Nobody was better on the day than Matthew Matthijs, who went 1-for-3 from the leadoff spot, drove in two runs and scored two more. He also came on in relief in the fourth inning, when North Carolina was holding a 4-2 lead. Matthijs held South Carolina hitless and struck out six batters in two innings.

Already up by two runs, North Carolina tacked on five runs in the top of the sixth to put the game out of reach.

Matthijs began the bottom half of the sixth with a strikeout before Carson Hardee entered and struck out three batters—one of whom reached first on a passed ball—to earn the victory.

Tennessee def. Georgia, 12-3

Tennessee jumped out to a 6-0 lead on Georgia and didn't look back, with Goodlettsville Little League defeating Peachtree City National Little League 12-3.

Tennessee scored twice in the top of the second before three singles and an error on Georgia shortstop Bryce Alewine plated four more runs in the top of the third.

Despite its high run total, Tennessee only had one extra-base hit—a double by Andrew Paige in the top of the fifth. The lineup excelled at manufacturing runs, and that continued in the fifth and sixth innings, when six more runs came home on a fielder's choice, a single and two errors.

Tennessee also got strong performances on the mound from the quartet of Carson Rucker, Easton Dillard, Kaleb Gupton and Trevor Marcin, all of whom had two strikeouts apiece.

Alabama def. Virginia, 5-4

The quest for the Little League World Series is over for Virginia after Fort Hunt Little League lost 5-4 to Ladonia Youth Sports.

Virginia lost despite coming back in the fifth inning to tie the game at 4-4. 

Nick Castrilli singled to bring home a run, and Nathan DeWitte doubled to score two more runs. With a runner on second and one out, Virginia looked poised to take the lead. Instead, Bennett Zippel struck out, and Michael Lavanga popped out to end top half of the inning.

Stranding DeWitte at second base proved pivotal, as Jaxon Yoxtheimer scored on a passed ball in the bottom of the fifth, which was the difference in the game.

It's fitting Yoxtheimer scored the winning run, since he pitched the final 1.2 innings for Alabama. He shut the door in the fifth and allowed a one-out walk in the sixth before inducing back-to-back groundouts to end the game.

Texas East def. Texas West, 11-10

In by far the most dramatic game of the day, Chandler Spencer hit a game-tying two-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh and then Malcolm Deason scored on a wild pitch to give Texas East an 11-10 win over Texas West.

That followed a sixth inning in which Darian Villarreal scored for Texas West to tie the game at 8-8. Texas West then took a 10-8 lead in the top half of the seventh.

The game featured massive momentum swings from start to finish. Texas West took an early 4-0 lead in the first and added three more runs in the top of the third before Texas East got on the board in the bottom of the third.

Then, Texas East plated seven runs in the bottom of the fourth to go ahead 8-7.

Saturday wasn't a good day to be a pitcher for either Texas East or Texas West, but their Southwest regional provided wall-to-wall entertainment.

Louisiana def. New Mexico, 11-1

Carrying a 5-1 lead into the fifth, Louisiana scored six runs in the bottom half of the inning to notch a run-rule victory.

The offensive explosion from Eastbank Little League will get the lion's share of the attention from the game, but Josh Sterling's performance on the mound shouldn't go overlooked.

Sterling pitched a complete game, allowing an earned run on three hits, walking a batter and striking out five over five innings. New Mexico's lone run came on a solo homer by Jordan Baca in the top of the first, and besides that, Eastdale Little League had no answer for Sterling.

Sterling was also 2-for-2 at the plate, earning an RBI and scoring two runs himself. Rhett Centanni also had a nice game, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored.