Louisville Is a 2-1 Winner

The hits were few, the strikeouts plenty.

Zachary Osborne and Aaron Alvey hit consecutive home runs in the 11th inning to give Louisville, Ky., a 2-1 victory over Fort Worth in the first U.S. semifinal at the Little League World Series.

It was the first game in the history of the Little League World Series in which both pitchers threw no-hitters through six innings.

Alvey struck out 19, while Fort Worth starter Walker Kelly struck out 21. Both had to be replaced in the 10th because of a Little League rule that bars pitchers from throwing more than nine innings.

Five pitchers combined for 49 strikeouts, the most ever in a series game.

The previous record, set during the 1971 championship game between Gary, Ind., and Tainan City, Taiwan, saw Lloyd McClendon, now the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Mu-Hsu Chin combine for 34. Tainan City won, 12-3, in nine innings.

The game took 3 hours, 10 minutes, one minute short of the series record set in 1998 between Toms River, N.J. and Jennison, Mich.

Worcester, Mass. plays Harlem, N.Y. in the other U.S. semifinal today, and that winner plays Louisville on Saturday in the U.S. championship game.

Osborne hit the first pitch of the 11th inning from Michael Valdez (1-1) over the wall in center field. Alvey then homered to left to make it 2-0.

“When I hit it, I was like, ‘Yeah it’s gone,’ ” said Osborne (2-0), who pitched the 10th and earned the victory.

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Japan beat Guam, 10-0, in the first international semifinal. Japan (4-0) will face the winner of today’s semifinal between Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles and Valencia, Venezuela for the international championship on Saturday.