Local Sports

Mexico, Venezuela teams to LLWS

Two more teams qualified for the Little League World Series this weekend by claiming the Mexico and Latin America regions.

Guadalupe Treviño Kel­ly LL from Tamaulipas won the Mexico regional in Sabinas Coahula,, defeating Matamoros LL, 3-1 on July 21. A total of 14 teams participated in the seven-day event.

Luz-Maracaibo LL from Maracaibo, Venez­uela, won the Latin Amer­ica Region in Barranquilla, Columbia, defeating Fal­cón LL of Cartagena, Colom­bia, 8-0, on Saturday. Eight teams participated in the eight-day event.

The 2017 LLWS runs Aug. 17-27 at Lamade and Volunteer Stadiums. The Mexico and Latin America region winners meet in the first round on the first day.

This will be Guadalupe Treviño Kelly's second trip here after reaching the International final in 2009. This year, the team went 7-0 in regionals.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Mon­terrey LL team becom­ing the first International team to win the title as Angel Macias threw a perfect game in the final.

This will be the 19th appearance here by a team from Venezuela, and the third time in the last four years that Venezuela won Latin America. Including this year, a team from Mara­caibo has made the Little League World Series 14 times dating back to 1965 and won the world championship in 1994 and 2000.

The Japan regional is scheduled to end today in Tokyo, as Tokyo’s Kita­suna LL meets Osaka’s Namihaya LL in one semifinal and Fuji City’s Fuji LL meets Chibashi LL in the other with the follow in the afternoon.

The Europe-Africa re­gion is scheduled to end July 25 in Kutno, Poland. Emilia, Italy is in that final vs. either London Youth Baseball LL, South Czech Republic LL, or Catalunya LL of Spain.

International teams al­ready qualified are West Seoul LL (Asia-Pacific), Hills LL of Sydney (Aus­tralia), Los Bravos de Pon­tezuela LL of the Domini­can Re­public (Caribbean).

The Canada and United States regionals begin in August, with all scheduled to end by Aug. 12. Several U.S. regional games, in­cluding all the finals, will air on ESPN channels.

This year's LLWS week also features a game be­tween the St. Louis Car­dinals and Pittsburgh Pir­ates to be held Aug. 20 at Bowman Field, a game being billed as the MLB Little League Classic.