Little League World Series scores and bracket: Australia, Venezuela dominate

Australia and Venezuela outscored their opponents 20-1 as they easily defeated -- and eliminated -- Czech Republic and Canada to move on through the international section of the Little League World Series’ second-chance pool on Saturday.

However, while they had similar results, going into their games this was a tale of two different teams. Venezuela’s 1-0 loss to Japan on Friday may not have hinted at their 10-0, five-inning game against Canada, but it certainly didn’t exclude the possibility. Australia, on the other hand, showed that their 16-3 drubbing by Puerto Rico may been a fluke, or at least, an indication of how good Puerto Rico is and not much else. Australia will get a chance to prove that again when they challenge the winner of Sunday’s showdown between Japan and Mexico.

And despite the margin, Venezuela ended their game in rather dramatic fashion, as Ronny Medina hit an instant walk-off -- or in this case, shutdown -- grand slam. The 10-0 deficit it created automatically ended the game via the mercy rule. The sneaky strong Venezuela squad may have a chance to get retribution against Japan if they can make it past the winner of South Korea and Puerto Rico’s game on Sunday.

As for the American teams, a back-and-forth game between South Dakota and Washington eventually led to South Dakota heading for the consolation games after they were unable to hold onto two separate one-run leads after the first and third innings.

In the final game of the evening, the Treys -- Thibeault and Bourque -- of Cumberland, R.I. led their team to an early lead with respective two- and three-run home runs. But the five runs weren’t enough to hold off Nashville as the boys from Tennessee scored five in the top of the sixth inning to make it 7-5. Then the Treys and their teammates made it even more dramatic, cutting the deficit to one and putting two on with two outs. Those two were then promptly brought home by the same young man -- CJ Davock -- who allowed the cavalcade of runs just a half-inning before. It was the second consecutive night that Rhode Island gave away the game in the front half of the final inning, but this time they were able to rewrite the ending.