South Williamsport, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Taiwan captured its first Little League World Series championship since 1996 on Sunday, defeating Nevada 7-0 behind a near-perfect performance from 12-year-old pitcher Lin Chin-Tse. The victory ended a 29-year title drought for the Taiwanese, who remain the most successful international team in tournament history with 18 titles, second only to the United States.
Lin was outstanding on the mound, retiring the first 13 batters he faced and surrendering just one hit over five innings. He also starred at the plate, delivering a three-run triple in Taiwan\u2019s decisive five-run fifth inning. With his fastball reaching speeds over 80 mph \u2014 the equivalent of much faster pitches at this level given the shortened 46-foot mound distance \u2014 Lin overpowered Nevada\u2019s hitters and kept them off balance throughout. \u201cIn the first inning, I was very nervous, but after that it was smooth,\u201d Lin said through an interpreter.
Taiwan\u2019s defense-first strategy proved successful once again, with the team allowing only three runs in the entire tournament \u2014 all of them against Venezuela. Manager Lai Min-Nan credited the approach, saying: \u201cIf the other team cannot get any runs, there\u2019s no way they can win this tournament.\u201d Nevada managed just one baserunner in the fifth inning when Garrett Gallegos singled to left, but the rally was quickly erased by a double play.
Offensively, Taiwan capitalized on Nevada\u2019s mistakes, turning wild pitches, passed balls, and throwing errors into scoring opportunities. Jian Zih-De scored the opening run on a wild pitch in the second inning, while Chen Shi-Rong came home on a throwing error in the third. Lin\u2019s triple in the fifth stretched the lead before another error allowed both him and Tsai Yu-Ge to score, putting the game out of reach.
As Chen Yi-Reng secured the final out with a catch in left field, Taiwan\u2019s players tossed their gloves into the air and celebrated on the mound, marking the nation\u2019s return to the top of youth baseball. For Nevada, playing in its first-ever championship game, the loss did little to overshadow the team\u2019s remarkable journey. \u201cThey will be heroes upon arrival in Las Vegas,\u201d said manager T.J. Fescher. The last international team to win the tournament was Japan in 2017, but this time, it was Taiwan\u2019s turn to reclaim its place among the greats of Little League history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Williamsport, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Taiwan captured its first Little League World Series championship since 1996 on Sunday, defeating Nevada 7-0 behind a near-perfect performance from 12-year-old pitcher Lin Chin-Tse. The victory ended a 29-year title drought for the Taiwanese, who remain the most successful international team in tournament history with 18 titles, second only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/images-91-1.jpeg?fit=678%2C452&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17051,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17050\/revisions\/17051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}