Henderson, Nevada did something no U.S. team had done since 2007: they won the Little League World Series U.S. Championship in back-to-back years. They got there by blitzing Hamilton, Ohio, and the celebration on the infield looked exactly like you'd expect from a bunch of 11 and 12-year-olds who just punched a return ticket to the world final.
Nevada becomes the first team to win Back to Back US Titles at the LLWS since 2007
That win put Nevada in a spot most kids never sniff once, let alone twice. Last year's Henderson squad actually made the world final too, but got run off the field by Chinese Taipei. This year's group looked like it was out to erase that memory, steamrolling Ohio to become the first repeat U.S. champ since a Georgia team pulled it off back in 2007.
Standing in the way of the actual world title, though, was Curaçao, which had just knocked off Japan for the international championship. Curaçao's LLWS pedigree isn't new — they won it all in 2004 — but 2 decades is a long wait, and this group made sure it wasn't for nothing.
For the first time since 2004, Curaçao has won the Little League World Series!
Curaçao closed it out 11-2, punching through Nevada's pitching for their second world title in program history and first since 2004. Nevada's run still stands on its own — a repeat U.S. championship is a genuinely rare feat in this event — but the international bracket had other plans for the trophy.
For Little League diehards, this is the kind of finish that gets replayed for years: back-to-back domestic titles for Henderson, a two-decade drought snapped for Curaçao, and a scoreboard that made it look easy for the team on the other side. Nevada's kids leave Williamsport with a piece of U.S. history anyway — just not the last trophy they wanted.