TAYLOR, MICH (Fox 2) - Chinese Taipei, the International Champions, will meet California, who won the US Championship, for the 2026 Junior League World Series title on Sunday, August 16. The game begins at noon.
Chinese Taipei has won the last four championships.
RESULTS OF THE FINAL FOUR:
Each of the unbeaten teams earned a spot in the JLWS finale with decisive wins on Saturday, August 15.
In the evening game, California led 3-0 after three innings and then exploded in the seventh inning for 13 runs and a 16-0 victory. California had beaten Taylor 4-2 earlier in the week.
Starting Cali pitcher Jayden Valdez was the big story. He went 6 1/3 innings before reaching the 95-pitch limit, giving up just one hit and three walks. He was dominant.
After RBI from Ryan Barbenena and Ryder Ong staked Cali and Valdez to a 2-0 lead, Jerimiah Ortega drilled an opposite field solo home run in the fourth inning to make it 3-0.
It remained that way until the seventh, when Cali sent 16 batters to the plate and scored 13 runs on five hits and two errors. Runs batted in were registered by Barberena, Noah Jauregui, Nathan Dowlin, Jayden Lopez, Ong (two RBI) and Adam Brewer before Ortega again came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. He drilled a Khiry Harris fastball deep over the left-center field fence for a grand slam, capping the victory in fine fashion.
Taylor finished the tournament 3-2.
In the afternoon opening game, Chinese Taipei clinched yet another berth in the JLWS finals with a 6-0 victory over Aruba. Chinese Taipei had also beaten Aruba earlier in the tournament, 10-0.
Again, pitching dominated for the winners. Kuan-Chin Lin went the seven-inning distance for Chinese Taipei, giving up just two hits and two walks while earning the shutout. He only pitched to one additional hitter over the minimum.
Chinese Taipei scored three times in each of the first and fourth innings. They registered five hits in those two innings. In the first, the winners got hits from Wei-Che Chiu, Tian-En Ma, Yung-Tai Hsu and Yi-Chieh Chao. In the fourth they had hits from Yi-Le Sung and Chia-Jui Yu.
Yi-Chieh Chao drove in three of the team’s sixth runs with a two-run single and a run-scoring ground out.
Aruba finished the tournament 2-2.