Snohomish drops opener at Little League World Series
Published 10:27 am Sunday, August 2, 2026
It was a tough day for the Snohomish All-Stars on Sunday at the Little League Softball World Series.
Representing the Northwest Region, Snohomish fell 14-0 in four innings to Southeast Region champion Lake Mary (Fla.) Little League in a game that started at 7 a.m. PDT. at Stallings Stadium in Greenville, North Carolina.
Snohomish will try to keep its season alive 7 a.m. Tuesday in a loser-out game in the tournament of 12U teams. The All-Stars have battled back before. Snohomish lost its first game of the Washington state tournament to Woodinville before winning seven straight for a state championship and a Northwest Region tournament spot.
Florida was to play Emilia Romagna, representing the Europe-Africa region, 10 a.m. Monday in the winner’s bracket.
Snohomish’s Jocelynn Day and Harlow Knisley each recorded a hit off of Lake Mary pitcher Chloe Cheek, who fired a two-hitter while striking out seven and walking just one.
Lake Mary jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first. Four of the first five batters reached, including a two-run single for the game’s first two runs.
That prompted a visit to the pitching circle from manager Jeff Crawford, who spoke to the full infield.
“First inning, a lot of game left here,” said Crawford, who was mic’d up for the ESPN2 broadcast. “All right, let’s get these last couple (outs) here and come back in and get busy with those hits. Let’s go — real early in the game. Don’t worry about this.”
Florida gave Washington more to worry about, though, by tacking on three unearned runs to push the lead to 5-0.
Northwest pitcher Madison Locke induced a fly ball for what would have been the third out of the first inning, but the ball bounced out of a Snohomish glove to extend the inning and tack on two more runs. The fifth run came home on what was ruled an infield hit before Locke struck out her second batter of the inning for the third out.
Snohomish’s Jaliyah Wright reached on a Florida error to lead off the bottom of the first, but Southeast induced a popup and struck out two batters to keep Northwest off the board.
Florida essentially put the game out of reach in the top of the second, registering six two-out hits to plate five more runs for a 10-0 lead. Lake Mary sent 19 batters to the plate through two innings, forcing Locke to throw 62 pitches.
Locke, who struck out 34 batters while pitching all 18 innings as Snohomish went 3-0 in the Northwest Region tournament, threw 104 pitches Sunday, striking out three batters.
