Chris Cardone hit home runs in consecutive at-bats, including a game-deciding two-run shot, as Toms River, N.J., won its first Little League World Series with a 12-9 victory over Kashima, Japan, Saturday afternoon.
Todd Frazier, Scott Fisher and Casey Gaynor also homered in a slugfest in which 11 balls cleared the fences. Toms River's bench scrummed at home plate after each one and, after Frazier struck out the final batter, they leaped on top of him as the crowd full of New Jerseyans celebrated.Frazier went 4-for-4 and finished the series with a .600 average and four homers.
Toms River, which finished 5-0, is the first World Series champion from New Jersey since Lake-wood's 4-3 victory over Belmont Heights, Tampa, Fla., in 1975.
Tetsuya Furukawa, Kashima's hottest hitter all week with a .555 average and 10 RBIs, hit three of Kashima's five homers. And on two of them, Tatsuya Sugata followed with solo shots of his own. But Kashima, the first team from Japan in the series final since 1976, couldn't overcome Toms River's onslaught.
Sayaka Tsushima, the sixth girl to play in a World Series and the first from a Far East champion, was the first girl to play in a final. She went 0-for-3.
Toms River, after twice surrendering leads, scored four runs in the sixth inning as Cardone broke out of a 1-for-10 series slump. Gabe Gardner, whose two fifth-inning errors had helped Japan tie the game, drove in two runs with a single to make it 12-8.
After surrendering a 3-0 first-inning lead, Toms River went ahead 8-4 on two-run homers by Fisher and Gaynor in the fourth inning and Cardone's pinch-hit shot in the fifth.
As they had all day, the Japanese came back behind the second of Furukawa and Sagata's consecutive homers in the fifth inning. Gardner's two errors at third allowed a third run to score, and a passed ball on Frazier's first pitch in relief tied the game 8-8.
Frazier's homer came on Sugata's third pitch of the game. Gaynor's single drove in a second run, but Sugata - who gave up three runs on three hits and three walks in two-thirds of an inning - got his revenge with a homer in the bottom of the in-ning.
A Japanese team hadn't been to the final since Chofu, Tokyo, won it in 1976 by beating Campbell, Calif., 10-3.