SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Lathan Norton was sick and didn’t play Saturday at the Little League World Series. But on Sunday he scored the winning run in the championship.
Lathan raced home from second base on an overthrow at first as Lake Mary, Florida, rallied to beat Chinese Taipei 2-1 in eight innings and claim the title.
“It was the greatest feeling ever,” said Lathan, who had a fever of 102 on Saturday but recovered before the championship. “I still haven’t had time to let it all sink in, but it feels like the most amazing thing ever.”
Taipei clung to a 1-0 lead from the first inning until Florida was down to its last at-bat. The Southeast region representatives outhit Taipei and had a runner on third in three separate innings but couldn’t get a run across.
Then, in the bottom of the sixth, Florida got runners on first and second and DeMarcos Mieses, who had struck out in his previous two at-bats, delivered. Hitting the gap in shallow left, he gave Chase Anderson enough time to sprint home and tie the game.
In the eighth, Lathan was placed by rule on second base to start the inning. Hunter Alexander bunted, and the throw to first went into the outfield. Florida players poured out of the dugout while the Taipei players crumpled.
“I was just thinking, ‘Stay fair, stay fair,'” Hunter said. “After that ball goes past me, I say, ‘Let’s go!'”
Taipei drew two straight walks to start the game. After a bunt that moved the runners over and then a popout, Hu Yen-Chun hit a ball toward third, which ricocheted off James Feliciano. Chiu Wei-Che scored easily. But it was Taipei’s only run.
This is the first championship in nine tries for Florida, which also came from behind in its 10-7 semifinal win over Texas on Saturday, scoring five runs in its final at-bat.
“We came here to do something,” Florida manager Jonathan Anderson said. “We came here to do a job, and today we accomplished that job. We took a loss to Texas, we battled all the way back and here we are to talk about how we won this whole thing.”
Taipei was a dominant team at the LLWS from 1969, when it won its first championship, to 1996, when it claimed its 17th. But it had made the title game only once since, in 2009, a loss to California, before Sunday. Lee Cheng-Ta managed both that team and this year’s club, Kuei-Shan Little League from Taoyuan. Last season, he led the same team — with a completely different roster — to a third-place finish.
Coaches for Taipei, representing the Asia-Pacific region, declined to attend the postgame news conference.
