Little League World Series : Taiwan Routs Hawaii, Wins Another Title, 10-0

Chen-Lung Yu pitched a one-hitter, and Wei-Chih Chen went 4 for 4 with a three-run homer as Tai Chung, Taiwan, routed Pearl City, Hawaii, 10-0, to win the 42nd Little League World Series, the fifth consecutive time the Far East has taken the tournament.

Yu, a 5-foot 4 1/2-inch, 134-pound right-hander, went the distance, striking out 10 with a 75-m.p.h. fastball. He retired the last 17 batters.

Chris Yoshimoto beat out a slow roller in the first inning, the only hit for Pearl City, a community of 40,000 near Pearl Harbor.

Chen singled in the first and third innings, hit his homer in the fourth and singled in the fifth.

Tai Chung, a city of 700,000 in central Taiwan, scored in every inning but the first and sixth, amassing 14 hits against four Pearl City pitchers.

Pearl City starter Ryan Morioka was the losing pitcher. The 4-foot 11-inch, 91-pound pitcher allowed two runs on two hits in one-plus innings, using mainly a curveball.

Right fielder Jason Adaro made the defensive play of the game before the crowd of 33,000 and an ABC-TV audience estimated at 20 million.

In the second inning, Adaro made a diving, over-the-shoulder catch on the warning track and turned it into a double play when he hit cutoff man Reid Numata, who threw out Hsin-Cheng Chen trying to score from second base.

Teams from Taiwan have won the series the last three years, outscoring their American opponents, 41-3.

Marietta, Ga., was the last American team to win the title for 11-and 12-year-olds, in 1983.

Korean teams won the championship in 1984 and ’85. Far East teams have won 18 of the last 22.

Hawaiian teams have been in the Little League World Series six times but have never won it.