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WILLIAMSPORT -- Ohio's Walker Osborne and Japan's Shinnosuke Ijima tossed complete games in the Little League Baseball World Series quarterfinals on Thursday to lift their teams into Saturday's United States and international championships, respectively.
Osborne, who hadn't pitched more than 1• innings in either of his first two appearances, threw 86 pitches and allowed just one run on four hits in Ohio's 7-1 win over Iowa on Thursday to set up Saturday's U.S. Championship against Nevada.
"Walker's a GOAT," Ohio manager Timothy Nichting said. "Walker's a tough dude and he paints the corner, and he gets his curveball going. He's a tough, tough guy to hit."
Meanwhile, Ijima had a lighter workload until Thursday's games, which started much earlier than initially planned with bad weather looming. The right-hander had thrown a combined four innings in two appearances before pitching all six frames in Japan's 4-1 win over Latin America. Japan will face Curacao in the international finale.
The winners of Saturday's games will play for the overall championship on Sunday.
"I'm very glad and happy to contribute to the team win," Ijima said. "I'm so happy to advance to the international championship. Curacao is a tough team. I really want revenge on Saturday."
Ohio and Japan had to battle back from early losses to the teams they'll face on Saturday in the double-elimination tournament.
Nevada, which defeated Ohio 6-5 on a walk-off single from Hudson Cowley last week, will look to replicate the result this weekend. Curacao, meanwhile, beat Japan 6-0 earlier in the week with Jaymiell Martina and Giendry Ryan combining for a no-hitter.
The team from Willemstad, Curacao punched its ticket to the international championship by edging past South Korea 1-0 and trouncing Nicaragua 12-3.