2016 Little League World SeriesAug. 18-28, 2016 Williamsport, Pennsylvania? World Series and Regional Games TV Schedule? Little League World Series Scoreboard ? 2016 LLBWS Schedule ? 2016 LLBWS BracketInternational Teams? Mexico Region: San Nicolas wins Mexico Region ? Australia Region: New South Wales ? Asia-Pacific Region: Seoul, South Korea ? Caribbean Region: Pariba Little League from Willemstad, Curacao? ? Europe-Africa Region: Emilia, Italy ? Japan Region: Representative has yet to be determined. ? Latin America Region: Representative will be determined on July 30. ? Canada Region: Representative will be determined on August 13.United States Teams? Great Lakes Region: Representative will be determined on August 13. ? Mid-Atlantic Region: Representative will be determined on August 13. ? Midwest Region: Representative will be determined on August 13. ? New England Region: Representative will be determined on August 13. ? Northwest Region: Representative will be determined on August 13. ? Southeast Region: Representative will be determined on August 10. ? Southwest Region: Representative will be determined on August 10. ? West Region: Representative will be determined on August 13.From Little League to the major leaguesEvery Little Leaguer dreams of making it to the big leagues. A total of 45 players have made both the Little League World Series and MLB, including these 13 current players who first made their names on the fields of Williamsport, Pa.Return to WilliamsportBack in 2012, a team from Lugazi, Uganda, became the first African representative in the LLWS, winning not only one of its three games but also the Sportsmanship Award. The players taught other teams the Ugandan Finish, a mass slide into the outfield grass at the end of a game. Reaching the LLWS again was a challenge for Uganda, Steve Wulf writes, but perhaps no one was more critical to its return than the tall, lanky man who managed the 2015 team in Williamsport, Benard Adeil.LLWS Facts and Figures? Official site: LLBWS.org ? 2016 LLBWS Schedule ? 2016 LLBWS Bracket ? Tournament Coverage: Game Live ? Facebook: Follow now ? FAQs about going to WilliamsportQualificationThe qualification process for the Little League World Series begins in the months before the tournament, when each local Little League program puts together an all-star team within its league. That team goes on to compete in district, sectional and state tournaments, most of which are double-elimination. The state champions (each state sends two teams) go on to a regional competition, broken up into eight regions:New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Great Lakes, Midwest, Northwest, Southwest and West. Eight divisions also compete in the international bracket: Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Latin America, Japan, Asia-Pacific, Europe-Middle East-Africa and Trans-Atlantic. More than 7,000 teams -- 6,500 in the U.S. -- participate in the tournament, with 6,500 of them eliminated within the first three weeks.World Series FormatThe Little League World Series is contested by 16 teams: the eight winners of the regional tournaments and eight international champions. In 2010, the tournament was determined by double elimination for the first time. The two brackets (the U.S. and international brackets) are divided into two pools. The winner of each pool goes on to a single-elimination championship game within its bracket. Then the U.S. and international champions compete for the World Series title in the championship game.Each team still will play at least three games -- the four teams that lose both games in their pool will play a consolation match against an international team that also dropped out in two games.EligibilityPlayers in the Little League World Series must be between the ages of 11 and 13. Players must provide birth certificates to show they are of age. The birth-date cutoff -- the earliest date that players could turn 13 -- is May. That means many of the players in the later rounds of the tournament have already turned 13.Girls are allowed to participate in the Little League World Series, although there also is a separate softball World Series. Girls were not allowed to participate in Little League until 1974, when the rules were revised to allow inclusion. Little Leagues softball programs were created the same year. Victoria Roche was the first girl to play in a Little League World Series, in the 1984 competition for the Brussels (Belgium) international squad. The 2004 tournament marked the first time two girls played in the same World Series (it happened again in 2009).VenuesHoward J. Lamade Stadium Howard J. Lamade Stadium is the field in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, that has played host to the Little League Baseball World Series every year since 1959. Located off U.S. Route 15, the field is named for the late vice president of Grit Publishing who was a member of the Little League board of directors in the 1950s.The field is roughly two-thirds the size of a conventional major league field. The pitching rubber is 46 feet from home plate, while basepaths are 60 feet in length. The distance from home plate to all points of the outfield fence at Lamade Stadium is 225 feet.It is estimated that more than 40,000 fans could be accommodated, including those on the hills beyond the outfield fences. The stadium seats between 8,000 and 10,000 fans.Little League Volunteer Stadium Situated next to Howard J. Lamade Stadium at Little League Baseballs headquarters in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Little League Volunteer Stadium can accommodate approximately 5,000 spectators (including lawn seating).Little League Volunteer Stadium is used for early-round games of the Little League World Series. Admission to and parking for games during the Little League World Series is free, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.Drew Bledsoe Youth Jersey . The FA rejected Wilsheres appeal that the length of his punishment was "clearly excessive" and said Thursday his suspension begins with immediate effect. He will miss league matches against Chelsea on Monday and West Ham on Dec. Jarrett Stidham Patriots Jersey . But Bourque, who has missed three games with a lower-body injury, wont be in the lineup when the Habs travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Wednesday. https://www.patriotssportsgoods.com/Womens-Sony-Michel-Inverted-Jersey/ . On Tuesday, Ottawa placed forward Cory Conacher and defenceman Joe Corvo on waivers as trade rumours swirl around the Senators. New England Patriots Jerseys . Perhaps Carroll was so prepared for a break because he believes there is very little the Seattle Seahawks need heading into the off-season. "I dont see anything that we need to add. We just have to get better," Carroll said. Tedy Bruschi Jersey .Y. - New York City has been selected to host the NBA All-Star weekend in 2015, with the game played at Madison Square Garden and the slam dunk contest and other skills events held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.I wrote up a League of Legends World Championship power ranking before the tournament began two weeks ago. Now that were on the verge of the quarterfinals at the historic Chicago Theatre, its time to see how wrong I truly was and try to right some wrongs from the initial ranking. How are the teams stacking up heading into the playoff stage, and which teams left the tournament without a whisper?The teams are ordered by retroactive rank, with pre-Worlds ranking listed below.1. Samsung Galaxy (South Korea)Fionns pretournament ranking: 5th Samsungs group stage performance: 5-1 (1st, Group D)This might cause some debate between the ordering of the top two teams in the retroactive rank, but Samsung was nearly flawless in its second week of the group stages. It ran over two good teams in Chinas Royal Never Give Up and Europes Splyce in fewer than 25 minutes, and Samsung was also able to exact revenge against North Americas Team SoloMid from its only loss the week before. The scary thing about Samsung is that it feels like it hasnt reached its full potential, unlike the other two South Korean titans at Worlds. Lee Crown Min-ho has a chance to break into superstar status depending on how he fares in a favorable side of playoff bracket, and his play on champion Viktor should be on the top of the ban list for any team that encounters him in the upcoming rounds.2. SK Telecom T1 (South Korea)Fionns pretournament ranking: 3rd SKTs group stage performance: 5-1 (1st, Group B)Albus Nox Lunas star support Kirill Likkrit Malofeev said it best in an ESPN interview last week, so take it away, League Jesus:No one wants to face SKT! They always come to the tournament with people saying theyre not as good as they used to be and -- Likkrit starts clapping his hands furiously. [They] clap your face. I dont want to be that guy that gets clapped.Every tournament, SKT seems like the too-easy prediction to win. However, the team has issues in some areas. Ah, people then say, this will be the international tournament where the king might finally fall off. Nope. SKT T1 only dropped a single game the entire group stage, and it showcased a variety of styles across the first two weeks going into the bracket stage. Samsung Galaxy might have been the best team in San Francisco, but come Chicago and the best-of-five format, there is nothing scarier for an opposing team than seeing the trademark red jackets of T1 take the stage.3. H2k (Europe)Fionns pretournament ranking: 10th H2ks group stage performance: 5-2 (1st, Group C)There was never a question about H2k players individual talents, especially the bottom lane; the question was whether the European club could play well enough as a team to prevail on the international stage. Week one, it didnt look like H2k could, going 1-2 and possibly a single loss away from being eliminated. Instead of crumbling, the teams core strengthened during the off days, and H2k reeled off four straight victories, including two against group-favorite Edward Gaming to take the top spot leading into the quarterfinals.4. ROX Tigers (South Korea)Fionns pretournament ranking: 1st ROXs group stage performance: 5-2 (1st, Group A)What a weird group stage for the ROX Tigers. The South Korean domestic champion wasnt able to get its early game going until the last few games of the opening round; it was pushed to an elimination match against NAs Counter Logic Gaming before finally turning on the jets to clear out of the group as the first seed by beating CLG and then ANX in the first-place tiebreaker. The Tigers should feel more at home now in the best-of-five format, but their laning phase will need to drastically improve if ROX wants to make another deep run at Worlds. The stumblings might have not killed them in Group A, but these initial mistakes, if they persist, will be the death of them against the likes of Edward Gaming, ROXs quarterfinal opposition.5. Royal Never Give Up (China)Fionns pretournament ranking: 8th RNGs group stage performance: 3-3 (2nd, Group D)RNGs ranking at fifth is more of a statement about the weakness of the field than RNGs excellence through the first two weeks. Not to say Royal was bad -- it was able to get out of the most difficult group in the opening round -- but there were clear deficits in its play that will most likely be exploited by SK Telecom T1 in the quarterfinals. But honestly, thats the case for almost every team outside of Samsung, SKT T1 and possibly H2k who all came into Week 2 looking better than Week 1. Royal is a team that runs everything through its bottom lane, and its not as though even the players are keeping it a secret.I think the reason TSM lost against us is because they didnt pay too much attention to our bot-lane duo. For enemy teams, if they actually heavily focus on our bottom lane, itll give us a much harder chance to win. But [TSM] didnt do that, said RNGs AD carry Jian Uzi Zi-Hao in an interview.TSM didnt exploit that vulnerability. SKT, the two-time world champion, will.6. EDward Gaming (China)Fionns pretournament ranking: 2nd EDGs group stage performance: 4-3 (2nd, Group C)So if you read my Top 5 at each position articles (under Features - Top 5 on our landing page) leading into the tournament, I had EDG players littered throughout. When asked why I didnt have the team first over ROX in my initial ranking, since ROX had fewer players in the Top 5 for their respective positions, I answered by pointing out the one EDG starter that I didnt include: Chen Mouse Yu-Hao. As a serviceable top laner in the domestic summer season, Mouse has been exposed in the enforced one-on-one laning phase in the top lane against some of the best players in the world. Although he did come up big on Poppy in the second half of EDGs must-win game against ahq when facing elimination in Group C, his time in lane has been miserable.To put this in perspective, Mouse has a CS differential of -22 at 10 minutes.EDGs next opponent? ROX and top laner Song Smeb Kyung-ho. Good luck, Mouse and Edward Gaming as a whole.7. Albus Nox Luna (CIS)Fionns pretournament ranking: 16th ROXs group stage performance: 4-3 (2nd, Group A)I was wrong. I was wrong. I was super-mega-wow-I-need-to-give-this-team-respect wrong. I even ranked Albus below INTZ, the other wild-card team who advanced through the International Wildcard Qualifier, and ANX even looked better than the Brazilian side there. While no one could have expected ANX to do this well on the international stage -- even the ANX players themselves -- the CIS champion accomplished the historic achievement of being the first wild-card team ever to advance out of Worlds groups. It even has a channce of beating H2k and making the Cinderella run of all Cinderella runs to the semifinal.dddddddddddd.The team, although sporting a few crafty pocket picks, is not winning through gimmicky strategies. There isnt a single individual standing out; rather, its the rosters internal cohesion that shines. The team has been able to secure objectives with stellar macro play, and it was able to defeat ROX Tigers in an hour-long marathon that currently holds the title for best game of the tournament. ANX isnt unbeatable and can unravel quickly if things start to get out of control, but even as the underdog heading into Chicago, can we really bet against Likkrit & Co. in any circumstance?8. Cloud9 (NA)Fionns pretournament ranking: 9th C9s group stage performance: 3-3 (2nd, Group B)Its hard to rank Cloud9. On one hand, it did make it to the quarterfinal stage. Thats an accomplishment on its own. It played hard against SK Telecom T1 in Week 2 and could have upset the defending champion if a few less-than-decisive plays hadnt gotten in the way. On the other, the team was romped by Flash Wolves and had difficulty putting away an I May club that picked one of the weirdest compositions of the tournament and got stomped in the laning phase. C9 still has a chance to improve with a quarterfinal meeting with Samsung Galaxy, and yet, even the players know theyre coming in at the bottom of the totem pole of the playoff teams.My general thoughts on the group stage are kind of that we didnt deserve to get out of groups just on how we played, said William Meteos Hartman in an interview following the teams advancement into the bracket portion of the competition.9. Team SoloMid (NA)Fionns pretournament ranking: 4th TSMs group stage performance: 3-3 (3rd, Group D)This was a team that wanted to be in the Summoners Cup Finals, and it will now find itself watching the festivities from home without even having a shot at a best-of-five series. TSM was the only team to take a game from group juggernaut Samsung Galaxy, but it threw away its chance of making the quarterfinal with sloppy decisions and lackluster map play when it played SSG for a second time. It lost another game it was ahead in against RNG in the first week, and then was eliminated by the Chinese club after it gave three kills to Uzi at the start of the game which, for all intents and purposes, buried the North American champion six feet under.I have TSM as the best team not to make the bracket stage, but really, what does that mean to a team that wanted and practiced for so much more?10. Counter Logic Gaming (NA)Fionns pretournament ranking: 12th CLGs group stage performance: 3-3 (3rd, Group A)I have the three NA teams ranked in order from 8th to 10th, and if you look at all three fared, I feel like this is pretty fair. As a whole, NA had the second-best record after South Korea as a region in the group stages, but it didnt have a single team like Europes H2k Gaming stand out in front of the pack. All three had the ability to go from average to a contender, but each failed in its own special way.For CLG, its lack of success against wild-card teams was once again its death at Worlds. It went 1-1 against the ROX Tigers and 2-0 against G2 Esports, something any CLG fan would have been ecstatic about on paper going into the tournament. Alas, despite the success against the favorites in the group, it was Albus Nox Luna who took both games from CLG and sent them out of the group stage.11. Ahq e-Sports Club (Taiwan)Fionns pretournament ranking: 14th Ahqs group stage performance: 3-3 (3rd, Group C)Like TSM and CLG, ahq was one win away from the quarterfinals. Unlike the other two, however, ahq had a gigantic lead against its do-or-die opponent in the game it lost. Edward Gaming was on its deathbed and the Taiwanese second-place team couldnt close the casket. The team meandered around, played too passively when it had chances to finish, and was once again eliminated from the tournament by its Chinese big brother EDG.12. Flash Wolves (Taiwan)Fionns pretournament ranking: 7th FWs group stage performance: 2-4 (4th, Group B)Taiwan was the only region this year not to send a team to the bracket stage. The Flash Wolves were the hope of the League Master Series, and the team failed to live up to expectations. The Taiwanese champion was able to take a game off of SKT in Week 1, but its ineptitude and lack of understanding against Chinas eccentric I May sent them out of the tournament. The FW will keep wondering how it let a team that played with its starting mid laner as support and starting support as jungler kill their chances at advancing from the first round.13. I May (China)Fionns pretournament ranking: 11th IMs group stage performance: 2-4 (3rd, Group B)Even talking about I May makes my head hurt. Its only two wins of the tournament came from the Flash Wolves in two games that the Flash Wolves almost certainly should have won. The first was a throw in Week 1, and the second was a game where I Mays starting support Yun Road Han-gil was suspended and had to use a crazy makeshift starting five. The Chinese team that had always found a way to survive and advance was ultimately eliminated by C9 in a game where IM was once again on the cusp of pulling another gigantic comeback.14. SplyceFionns pretournament ranking: 14th SPYs group stage performance: 1-5 (4th, Group D)Although Splyce was only able to pick up one victory, it shouldnt feel too badly about its performance at Worlds as a rookie organization. It was in the Group of Death that lived up to the hype, and it was able to take a thunderous victory over RNG in a blowout that kept it from going home winless.15. INTZ e-SportsFionns pretournament ranking: 15th INTZs group stage performance: 1-5 (4th, Group C)Sure, INTZ did lose five in a row to close out the tournament; even though it wasnt a rosy end to the journey, the Brazilian champion will always remember its debut match on the Worlds stage where it knocked out EDward Gaming in one of the biggest upsets the tournament has ever seen.16. G2 EsportsFionns pretournament ranking: 6th G2s group stage performance: 1-5 (4th, Group A)Another poor performance by G2 on the international stage in 2016. It was able to win a game in its last match against Albus Nox Luna, but other than that, there was nothing to show for the back-to-back European champion. This team is better than its position on the ranking, and its sad we possibly may never see this starting five reach its full potential on the world stage. ' ' '