It’s win or go home for Sammamish’s Eastlake at LLWS

It’s win or go home time for the little leaguers from Sammamish. They lost a tough game Sunday to the Connecticut state champs, and they must win Monday night or their World Series experience is over.

The wind went out of Eastlake Little League’s sails in the second inning against Connecticut Sunday.

Ace pitcher and cleanup hitter Jacob Dahlstrom was hit in the knee with a line-drive and had to leave the game, and before the kids could recover from seeing their buddy on the ground and in pain, Connecticut put up seven runs and built a 9-1 lead.

But to Eastlake’s credit, they battled back to 9-7 and had runners in scoring position before Connecticut shut the door in the sixth inning.

“Those kids battled every at-bat,” said team mom Liz Ambruester. “It just didn’t turn up in our favor today. Look out Monday. These boys are going to come back hitting.”

Assistant coach Matt Fitzgibbons said Jacob Dahlstrom has a deep bruise and will be checked out Monday to see if he can play, but even if he can’t, Coach Fitz said the kids are ready to go.

“We’ll bounce back,” he said. “We’ll be fine. They’re a pretty tough little team, and we’ve been in this situation before. We lost at state in the first round and bounced back the next day. We’ll be alright. They’ll be fine.”

Coach Fitz said the team knows the situation for Monday, win or go home, and they don’t want to leave Williamsport just yet.

“This has been a really long journey, but I definitely want it to last a couple more days, if we can,” he said.

Eastlake takes on the Iowa state champs Monday at 5 p.m. PST.