Clarendon Hills drops game 3; bows out of ‘best experience' at Little League World Series
Playing in an elimination-bracket game, Clarendon Hills, the Great Lakes Region champion playing in its first World Series, lost, 9-1, to the West Region winner from Hawaii.
Clarendon Hills fell behind early, as Hawaii scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning, added three more in the second and one in the third for a 9-0 advantage.
Clarendon Hills scored its lone run in the top of the fourth on an RBI-single by Liam Harrigan, scoring Jack Kaczmarski.
'Their team came out and was very aggressive,' Clarendon Hills manager Brian Herold said, 'Everything I had scouted about them — that we should be throwing breaking balls early — it was like they knew what my strategy was, They sat on off-speed stuff. I thought (pitcher) Jack (Kaczmarski) did terrific. Kudos to them.'
Left-hander Kaczmarski was the starting pitcher for Clarendon Hills, working 1 2/3 innings, before giving way to Jack O'Malley for 1 1/3 innings and finally Luca Striltschuk for two.
Hawaii taking a big lead early in the game definitely created a challenge.
'It affected us,' said infielder Matthew Kalish. 'It lowered our momentum. They just hit the ball.'
Teammate Henry McMahon agreed.
'We just were tying to keep our heads up, stay with it and tryi to bounce back,' he said.
Clarendon Hills found itself in the elimination bracket after losing Wednesday to the Mountain Region champion from Nevada, 16-1. The local team bounded back Saturday with a 3-2 win over the Mid-Atlantic Region winner from Pennsylvania.
Hawaii, which won World Series titles in 2005, 2008, 2018, and 2022, dropped its opening game Friday to the Metro Region champion from Connecticut, 5-1.
Clarendon Hills showed resiliency multiple times during its summer run, as it lost a game in district competition to Naperville, before beating the same team for the championship.
After winning the Illinois state championship without a loss, Clarendon Hills was defeated by Ohio in the Great Lakes Region tournament, but came back again to beat that same team, which earned a berth in the World Series.
While no World Series championship was in the cards for Clarendon Hills, it did bounce back from its opening-round loss to Nevada to beat Pennsylvania.
Despite being eliminated from the World Series with Sunday's loss, the positives of the experience of making it there weren't lost on the team.
'My dream was to play with my friends as long as possible,' Kalish said. 'Just being here, learning new things about different cultures, was amazing. We spent a lot of time with the team from Japan, and being here with the international teams and all the other teams was incredible. This experience meant so much. I love and live baseball.'
McMahon called the experience of participating in the World Series, 'the best experience I've have had in my whole life.'
'It went by so fast,' McMahon said. 'We've been practicing for a long time. Knowing there are no more games is hard to take in.'
Herold said all along that his team wasn't satisfied to 'just be there' for the World Series. But there was plenty to be positive about, even after being eliminated.
'It's an amazing experience, an accomplishment that was our goal,' he said. 'We quickly shifted gears when we reached this level. To play the best teams from across the world and to elevate your game, that is what we did.
'We're also very proud of our community and where we're from. We've had great support, and we're excited to come home and share our experiences with our community.'
Details have not been set, but Clarendon Hills officials say there will be some organized celebration for the team when they return.
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