TAIWAN – Kuei-Shan Little League of Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei, won the Asia-Pacific Region Championship on Thursday, and is the second league to qualify for the 63rd Little League Baseball World Series in South Williamsport, Pa.

In the Asia-Pacific Tournament Championship Game, Kuei-Shan Little League needed only four innings to defeat Central Little League, from Agana, Guam, 11-0. Kuei-Shan Little League finished the 11-team tournament with a 6-0 record, outscoring its opponents, 71-4.

Chin Ou pitched four scoreless innings and Wen-Hua Sung continued swinging a scorching bat with a pair of hits to lead Taiwan to a 11-0 rout over Guam in the Asia-Pacific Regional Tournament Championship on Saturday in Taipei City to advance to the Little League Baseball World Series.

Ou, who was 1-for-3 with an RBI at the plate, turned in a brilliant outing on the mound in a four-inning contest halted early due to the 10-run mercy rule. The talented pitcher allowed just one hit and a walk while racking up eight strikeouts.

Sung, a two-way standout who led the tournament with seven home runs, was also the top pitcher with a 0.00 ERA in 7 2/3 innings.

Pai-Chuan Pan homered and drove in three runs, and Yuan-Ting Tai went 2-for-2 with an RBI for the Taiwanese champion.

Kuei-Shan Little League joins Latin America Region Champion Coquivacoa Little League of Maracaibo, Venezuela, as participants in the 2009 Little League Baseball World Series.

Teams from Chinese Taipei have reached the Little League Baseball World Series 23 times, winning 17 World Series championships. The most recent championship came in 1996 when a team from Fu-Hsing Little League in Kaohsuing defeated Western Little League of Cranston, R.I., 13-3, in the world championship game.

The Little League Baseball World Series for 11-12-year-olds will be played in Williamsport, Aug. 21-30. Sixteen teams from around the world will take part.

The World Series championship game can be seen live on ABC at 3:30 p.m., on Sunday, Aug. 30. ABC also will televise the International Championship Game on Saturday, Aug. 29 at noon, followed by the United States championship at 3 p.m.

The 2009 World Series will be the third operated under the eight-year television contract agreement with ESPN/ABC. Five games will be televised on ABC. This will be the fourth year that all of the World Series games will be televised in high definition. For the eighth year since the tournament expanded from eight to 16 teams in 2001, every team will have games on national television.

All 32 games of the World Series will be televised again this year. Thirteen World Series games will be televised on ESPN and 14 will be televised on ESPN2. In addition, the ESPN family of networks will carry all eight of the U.S. Regional Championship finals in the Little League Baseball division. The U.S. regional finals have been televised by ESPN and ESPN2 every year since 1997.

For the second consecutive year, the New England Sports Network (NESN) is scheduled to televise four early-round games in the New England Region Tournament. The Madison Square Garden Network (MSG) is scheduled to televise four early-round games in the Mid-Atlantic Region Tournament. Each tournament is to be played at Little League’s A. Bartlett Giamatti Leadership Training Center in Bristol, Conn.

The next berth in the Little League Baseball World Series is expected to be decided on July 12, when Japan’s National Championship Tournament in Tokyo, is expected to end.

The U.S. region finals, which will be televised live, are: Thursday, Aug. 13 – Southwest (Waco, Texas, 8 p.m., ESPN2); Friday, Aug. 14 – Southeast (Ceredo-Kenova, W. Va., 8 p.m., ESPN); Saturday, Aug. 15 – Midwest (Indianapolis, noon, ESPN); New England (Bristol, Conn., 2 p.m., ESPN); Great Lakes (Indianapolis, 7 p.m., ESPN); Northwest (San Bernardino, Calif., 9 p.m., ESPN); Sunday, Aug. 16 – West (San Bernardino, Calif., 8 p.m., ESPN2); Monday, Aug. 17 – Mid-Atlantic (Bristol, Conn., 8 p.m., ESPN2).

Little League Baseball and Softball is the largest organized youth sports program in the world, with 2.6 million participants in all 50 states and scores of other countries.

Sources: Little League World Series website, Taiwan Baseball

Photo courtesy of Taiwan Baseball

Tags: LLWS, Taiwan