Little League World Series 2017: Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores Plays Thursday

GROSSE POINTE, MI — The Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores Little League team is raising money to offset travel costs for families of the 13 members of the team to go to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the team opens play in the Little League World Series this week.

The team representing Michigan is advancing to the national stage after winning the double-elimination Great Lakes Regional Tournament, Little League World Series begin play Thursday, Aug. 17, and wraps up with the Aug. 27 title game.

This is the eighth time a team from Michigan has advanced to the Little League World Series. The last time the Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores team made an appearance in the tournament was in 1979. The only Michigan team to win the series was from Hamtramck, which took the title in 1959.

This spring, more than 7,000 teams in about 80 countries on six continents opened Little League play with their eyes on South Williamsport. Something like 16,000 game later, the field was winnowed to the 16 taking the field this week. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Grosse Pointe Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

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Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores plays Lufkin, Texas, at 7 p.m. Thursday. The game will be broadcast by ESPN2. More information is found here.

The 13 boys on the Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores team held fundraisers and raised $2,500 for the trip to the Michigan State Tournament, and donors chipped in the $2,500 for the Great Lakes Regional Tournament in Indianapolis, according to the GoFundMe page.

“Each leg of the tournament requires the families to travel hours away, stay at hotels for an entire week, and eat nearly every meal at restaurants,” according to the the site.

The Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores team fought its way back in the double-elimination regional tournament after an opening round loss. The team won its next four games, winning the Great Lakes Regional Tournament championship Saturday with a 6-3 loss of Hinsdale, Illinois.

Coach Jason Hill told The Detroit News the boys had a “deer-in-the-headlights” look in the opening game.

“I don’t know if it was playing in front of a camera or being on a little bigger stage,” Hill said.

The next four-game streak included two shut-outs.

“Our backs were against the wall and we ended up winning four straight,” Hill told the newspaper during a phone interview from a bus carrying the boys to Williamsport Sunday. “Quite honestly, I think it was a total team effort. I really do.”

Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores rotated five pitchers in and out of the final four games of the tournament.

“It didn’t matter if it was our No. 1 or No. 5 guy, everybody threw strikes and did what they needed to and the bats turned on for us after [the opening round loss],” he said. “We started scoring some runs and putting together some better plate approaches, better at bats and runs obviously help a great deal and we were able to score a lot of those last couple days.”

Opening-round games in the double elimination Little League World Series are:

Thursday

Game 1: Venezuela vs. Mexico, 1 p.m., ESPN
Game 2: Jackson, N.J. vs. Fairfield, Conn., 3 p.m., ESPN
Game 3: White Rock, British Columbia vs. Italy, 5 p.m., ESPN
Game 4: Lufkin, Texas vs. Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores, 7 p.m., ESPN2

Friday

Game 5: Tokyo vs. Sydney, 2 p.m., ESPN
Game 6: Walla Walla, Wash. vs. Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., 4 p.m., ESPN
Game 7: Dominican Republic vs. Seoul, 6 p.m., ESPN
Game 8: Sioux Falls, S.D. vs. Greenville, N.C., 8 p.m., ESPN

Photo via GoFundMe