LAKE MARY, Fla. – The Lake Mary All-Stars arrived back in Central Florida on Monday after winning the Little League World Series championship game a day earlier.
The team rallied to beat Taiwan 2-1 in eight innings and claim the title.
“It was the greatest feeling ever,” said Lake Mary’s Lathan Norton, who scored the winning run. “I still haven’t had time to let it all sink in, but it feels like the most amazing thing ever.”
[MEET THE TEAM: Lake Mary All-Stars]
Lake Mary is planning to host a parade this Saturday, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime celebration.”
Bryan Nipe, the director of Economic Development, Parks & Recreation, said they’ve been working on this celebration for months.
“We already had our girls softball win states, and we already had some big energy there, and the boys kept going. We knew something big was happening,” Nipe said.
The city says the parade to honor the team, their coaches and families will start at 10 a.m. It will include a procession of vehicles, mascots and a marching band.
“This is the most inspirational story,” said Lake Mary Mayor David Mealor. “If you stop and think about it, last year, this team missed going to the world series by one game, but they didn’t look at it as a failure. They looked at it as an opportunity to improve to be better. Today they are not only national champions, they’re world series champions.”
This is the first championship in nine tries for Florida, which also came from behind in its 10-7 semifinal win over Texas on Saturday, scoring five runs in its final at-bat.
“We came here to do something. We came here to do a job, and today we accomplished that job,” Florida manager Jonathan Anderson said. “We took a loss to Texas, we battled all the way back and here we are to talk about how we won this whole thing.”
News 6 will stream the parade celebration on Saturday, Aug. 31, live both on air and ClickOrlando.com.
“We just know right now it will be special in Lake Mary this Saturday,” Mealor said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: