Twenty of the best youth baseball teams from around the world came together over 11 days in August in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to face off in the 2025 Little League Baseball World Series, an international baseball tournament for 10- to 12-year-olds.
Summerlin South Little League from Las Vegas beat out teams from nine other regions of the United States to play in the World Series final August 24. In turn, Tung-Yuan Little League from Taiwan triumphed over nine other international teams to secure their spot in the final, where they beat the team from the United States to win the 2025 World Series in a decisive victory. It was the first Little League Baseball World Series win for a team from Taiwan since 1996.
Twelve-year-old Lin Chin-Tse pitched a near-perfect game for Tung-Yuan, with five scoreless innings. “He works really, really hard,” Yu Pei-Ying, the star pitcher’s grandmother, told USA TODAY Sports through an interpreter.
“He’s been thinking about coming to the U.S. to play ball. And he finally achieved that.”
Though they were one win short of the World Series title, Summerlin South was all smiles as they arrived home at the Las Vegas airport to a crowd of their supporters. “It was my favourite experience out of all that I’ve been able to have playing baseball,” pitcher Garrett Gallegos told KTNV Las Vegas.
The team made their state proud as the first team from Nevada to compete in the World Series and the first Nevada team to win the U.S. Championship title. “Making history is not very easy to do, and we just did that,” said Gallegos.
“That means our team is quite the great team.” Baseball will return as a medal event at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
