Little League

Mass. reaches U.S. final

By Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2003

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SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Tears in the dugout turned to a celebration on the field when Saugus, Mass., which blew an eight-run lead, scored four in the bottom of the seventh inning and beat Richmond, Texas 14-13 Thursday night in the U.S. semifinals of the Little League World Series.

Matthew Muldoon's single tied it in the seventh, and David Ferreira drove in the winning run with a two-out infield hit.

Saugus (4-0) will play Boynton Beach in Saturday night's U.S. championship game. Saugus beat Boynton Beach 4-3 in pool play.

Eli Sepulveda hit a run-scoring double and Cody Robinson a two-run homer in the seventh to give Richmond (2-2) a 13-10 lead.

But Robinson walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning, forcing a switch to Randal Grichuk.

Dario Pizzano's single and an error on the throw to the plate brought Saugus within 13-12. Grichuk then got two strikes on Muldoon, bringing tears to the eyes of at least one of his teammates. But Muldoon lined a single to right that scored Tyler Grillo.

Ferreira then tapped a ball down the third-base line and beat the throw to first by half a step as Pizzano scored the winning run.

JAPAN 7, MEXICO 1: Shigeki Umeda hit a home run and a two-run double for Tokyo. Japan (4-0) advances to its fourth straight international title game, where it will face a team from Curacao, Netherlands Antilles for the third consecutive time.

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