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On Aug. 8, Needville Little League (NLL) defeated a team from Louisiana 5-3 to capture the Southwest Region Championship and advance to the Little League World Series (LLWS) in Williamsport, PA. This is the second year in a row that a Houston team has advanced to the LLWS.
“Needville Little League is beyond excited that for the first time in the 60-year history of our local Little League, our 12-year-old All-Star baseball team has advanced to the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, PA,” the team said in an Aug. 9 Facebook post. “The families, friends, and community have supported this team through [four] tournaments (District, Sectionals, State and Regional) throughout the summer supporting their kids.”
According to NLL, the 84-year-old youth sports organization will provide housing and meals for NLL throughout the LLWS. “This is a unique and wonderful opportunity for a group of 12-year-old boys to travel, represent their small community of 3000+, and get to know not only other teams from around the United States, but also ten International Little League teams,” the Facebook post read. “Truly a once in a lifetime for the boys and their families.”
It’s the second consecutive year in which a team from the Houston area punched its ticket to north central Pennsylvania. Houston Daily reported last year that the Pearland Little League (PLL) earned a trip to the international youth baseball tournament only to fall a game short of the U.S. championship game. The team became media darlings after a viral video showed PLL hurler Kaiden “Bubs” Shelton engaging in an act of sportsmanship with a player from the team representing Tulsa, Okla.
Houston NPR affiliate KUHF 88.7 reports that Needville will make its LLWS debut on Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. in a game against a team from the Mid-Atlantic Region. Per the station, NLL looks to make up for bowing out of the 2021 Southwest Region tournament after it was forced to leave following a positive COVID-19 test yielded by one of its members.