A look back at Summerlin South’s Little League World Series run

Summerlin South baseball coach TJ Fechser didn’t realize it in May, but something special was about to happen.

With the regular season completed, Fechser had been selected to help choose an all-star team, and what a group of players he and the league picked.

League officials and other coaches worked with Fechser, and a team was named. An unbelievable run was about to begin.

Over the ensuing three months, those players would storm through the district tournament, the state tournament, the Mountain Region and Little League World Series on the way to the U.S. championship and an appearance in the title game. They would win 16 of 18 games in doing so.

“The all-star process is a very tough process,” Fechser said. “I’m very proud of the league to be able to sit back and decide on the most talented kids to be on the team. By late May, they had selected me as manager.”

Along with assistant coaches Tony D’Ambrosio and Americo Miranda, it was suddenly Fechser’s job to whip a dozen preteen boys into shape with just 12 practices.

“I had already coached about half of the boys, so I knew many of them,” said Fechser, who noted his team’s many narrow wins in the early going. “It was great to watch them come together as a team.”

Wild run begins

Summerlin South defeated longtime league nemesis Peccole twice to win the District 4 tournament, and the coaching staff was beginning to see the magic.

“Once we ran through them, I knew we certainly had a good chance (to make the LLWS),” D’Ambrosio said. “I felt there was not a team in the U.S. we couldn’t beat.”

He was right.

After going 5-0 in the District 4 tournament, Summerlin South advanced to its first state tournament and went 3-0 with the help of a challenging 9-6 victory over defending state champion Paseo Verde.

“When we beat Paseo Verde, that was the moment,” said Fechser, who realized his squad had the potential to go all the way.

Everything suddenly changed.

“It was a new experience,” Fechser said. “We were on TV and living in hotels without parents, and it was a big deal.”

Keeping focus

A pivotal coaching decision was made, and Fechser remains convinced it was instrumental in the team’s success.

“We took their phones away so they could sleep,” he said. “They only had them in the day.”

Next, it was on to the Mountain Region tournament in San Bernardino, California, where the Nevada team defeated Utah twice and Colorado once.

The first Utah win involved overcoming an 8-0 first-inning deficit in a 22-12 victory. A 6-3 second victory over Utah sealed the regional title and earned Summerlin South a trip to South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, as the third consecutive Nevada team to qualify.

“Getting to Williamsport, no one can prepare for this experience,” Fechser said. “You’re expected to play baseball but also participate in the whole experience.”

There were suddenly meetings, events, interviews and required gatherings. And a greater stage.

Summerlin South cruised past Great Lakes champion Clarendon Hills, Illinois, 16-1 in its opening-round game before battling to a 5-3 win over Northwest representative Bonney Lake, Washington.

Then came the big one. A classic pitchers’ duel in which Summerlin South pitcher Garrett Gallegos countered Joe Giulietti, Southeast champion Irmo, South Carolina’s ace. Gallegos had a shutout going into the seventh inning, and Giulietti had a no-hitter.

Both pitchers hit their pitch limits and were pulled, leading to Cutter Ricafort’s dramatic RBI single in the seventh that lifted Summerlin South to a 1-0 victory. It was the Nevada team’s 14th consecutive victory.

Fechser’s squad faced something new in the following game. After nabbing an early 3-0 lead, the team fell to Metro champion Fairfield, Connecticut, 7-3. Fechser said he did not worry about his players’ ability to overcome a loss in the modified double-elimination tournament.

‘Just got dinged’

“It’s not the first time these kids have competed,” he said. “They’ve all lost big games before. It’s hard to win all your games. They just got dinged, but could still get through it.”

And they did.

Summerlin South bounced back in a rematch with Irmo for a 5-3 victory in the semifinals before Gallegos carried the team with his right arm and bat in an 8-2 victory over Fairfield for the U.S. championship.

Ricafort’s perfect throw from right field to home in the fifth inning squelched a rally by Fairfield in that game, and Gallegos hit the biggest home run of the LLWS in the sixth inning to seal the win.

That three-run blast resulted in Fechser’s favorite moment of the tournament.

“The reaction on the faces of those 12-year-olds when Garrett hit that home run,” he said. “That encapsulated it all right there. The kids couldn’t process it. They couldn’t even talk because they knew what a big moment it was.”

Even Gallegos was in disbelief.

“Almost tears,” he said.

Huge hurdles

But Summerlin South had several problems entering the title game against Chinese Taipei. The top three pitchers — Gallegos, Ethan Robertson and Cache Malan — were ineligible to pitch after exhausting their pitch maximums during a week of heavy action.

Brooks Fechser, who was pulled from the U.S. semifinal with dizziness, was unable to play, causing TJ Fechser to scramble his lineup and move players out of their usual positions.

But to top all, Asia-Pacific champion Chinese Taipei had saved its ace for the title game.

Lin Chin-Tse, whose fastball had been routinely clocked in the upper 70s and low 80s, had dominated opponents throughout the LLWS, and he did it again versus Summerlin South. He threw a perfect game through five innings and beat the Nevada team 7-0.

Still, Lin and his teammates were unable to remove the smile from Fechser’s face.

“I’ll take getting here any day of the week,” said Fechser, whose team was the fourth to be shut out by Chinese Taipei in the tournament. “Just being here has been wonderful. If this is the booby prize, I’ll take it all day.”

The boys had set out to make Nevada proud, and they did just that.

Replay in 2026?

The team returned Monday with heads held high, ready to participate in Wednesday’s parade and other festivities.

Nine of the 12 boys left their Little League careers on the field Sunday at South Williamsport, but three will continue playing next year. The league has a strong group of 11-year-olds coming up, and Fechser sees the possibility of another run.

There’s no guarantee he would be named coach in 2026, but there’s no harm in dreaming.

“If I earned the opportunity and the league supported me, I would definitely take it,” he said.