Just hours after a heartbreaking 14-4 loss to the Great Lakes Region, the team from the Midwest Region needed a win on Tuesday afternoon to avoid being eliminated from the 2016 Little League World Series, but the team from the New England Region was bound to not make it easy on them.

New England takes an early lead

New England took the lead in the top of the first when Chase Pariseau hit a one-out single to left-center field. He advanced to third on a double from Colin Lemieux and scored when Kenny Rix hit a sacrifice fly to center field to put them up 1-0.

It turned into a pitcher's duel after that, as neither team was able to scratch a run across until the Midwest tied the game in the bottom of the fifth inning when Kaiden Dinh hit a leadoff home run to center field. New England re-took the lead in the top of the sixth inning when Rix hit a leadoff bomb of his own.

Midwest rallies to survive

The Midwest came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth needing one run to send the game into extra innings, and two runs to eliminate New England. Miles Risley led off the inning by reaching on an error and advanced to third when Michael Siemer singled to right field.

Payton Newhouse and Jake Pemble high-five after an inning. (Little League International)

Risley scored when Josh Larson singled to left field to tie the game at two. Dinh then stepped up to the plate with the winning run on third and one out and delivered a walk-off single to left field to keep his team alive in the tournament, while it also eliminated New England.

Tyler Moore picked up the win for the Midwest as he went four innings, giving up just one run on four hits while recording five strikeouts with just 60 pitches thrown. Lemieux took the loss for New England, as he went 5.1 innings, giving up three runs on four hits while recording 13 strikeouts on 88 pitches, which is just over the maximum that is allowed in Little League.

Coming up

Midwest will now play on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET against either the team from the Southeast region or the team from the West region, whom they beat in the first round of the tournament.

If they win that, they would play on Thursday, with a win sending them to the US Championship game, scheduled to be played on Saturday afternoon, with the winner playing in the world championship game against an international team.

The New England team, meanwhile, is done with baseball for the season and will now turn their attention to school.

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About the author
Stevie Larson
NASCAR Editor, Minnesota sports fan. Contact: [email protected]