Davenport Northwest Blanks Bayonne 6-0 Behind 15-Strikeout Gem at Little League World Series

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Bayonne Central Little League arrived at Lamade Stadium on Sunday afternoon without a loss all summer. It left having barely touched the baseball. Davenport Northwest Little League, the Midwest Region champion from Iowa, shut out the Metro Region champions 6-0 on Aug. 23 behind one of the most dominant pitching performances of the 2026 Little League World Series.

The win kept Davenport unbeaten and sent it to the U.S. winners' bracket final. For Bayonne, it was the first loss in 16 games, according to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, ending a 15-game winning streak that had carried the New Jersey team from district play all the way to Williamsport. In the double-elimination format, though, the loss did not end its summer.

Fifteen Strikeouts and One Hit

Anthony Johnson Jr. started for Davenport and threw 5 2/3 innings of one-hit ball with 15 strikeouts, the Sun-Gazette reported. The only hit Bayonne managed against him was a third-inning infield single. He struck out at least two batters in every inning he pitched and struck out the side in the second, fourth and fifth innings. Kannon Kane finished it, striking out the only batter he faced.

The outing came two days after Davenport opened its Series with a 1-0 win over Bonita, Calif., a game in which Cooper Thissen and Johnson combined on a no-hitter, according to the Sun-Gazette. Through two games and 12 innings, Iowa pitchers had piled up 33 strikeouts.

Bayonne's own manager did not hold back his praise. Justin Smith told the Sun-Gazette that Johnson's change-up and curveball were great and called him "lights out."

An Early Lead and a Late Blast

Davenport did not need much, but it got runs early. In the first inning Thissen and Johnson both walked, Kane brought home the first run with a ground ball and Caleb Erwin followed with an RBI single for a 2-0 lead. Johnson added an RBI single in the third to make it 3-0.

Then Johnson put the game away himself with a three-run home run that made it 6-0. The Sun-Gazette's Chris Masse wrote that the drive cleared the right-center field fence by a wide margin and ranked among the longest balls hit at Lamade Stadium in recent years. Johnson finished 2-for-2 with a homer, a single, a walk and four RBIs.

Erwin went 3-for-3, becoming the first U.S. player at this year's Series to collect three hits in a game, according to the Sun-Gazette. Thissen doubled, walked twice and scored three runs.

Big-League Audience

The game had an unusual crowd in the stands. Players from the Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers, in town for the MLB Little League Classic at Bowman Field, were at Lamade Stadium to watch, and Johnson said he noticed.

"It felt great," Johnson told the Sun-Gazette. "Knowing Major League players are going to be coming to the game you're pitching I was like I have to show out for these guys."

History for the Midwest

The win had meaning beyond the bracket. The Sun-Gazette reported that Davenport became the first Midwest team to reach the winners' bracket final since the Little League World Series adopted double elimination in 2010. A win in that next game would have made it the first Midwest team to reach a U.S. championship since the region was formed in 2001.

This is the sixth Davenport team to reach the Series, according to the Sun-Gazette, and Northwest also made it in 2004 and 2005. League president Bryan Pearson told the paper earlier in the week that the players "have each other's backs."

What Came Next

Bayonne's run ended two days later, when Hamilton, Ohio, beat the New Jersey champions 5-2 in an elimination game on Tuesday, Aug. 25. It was the first Little League World Series appearance in the program's 75-year history, according to New Jersey 101.5, and the team came home with two Series wins, a 2-1 walk-off victory over Bridgewater, Mass., and a 3-1 win over West Chester, Pa. News 12 New Jersey reported that Bayonne finished as one of the six best Little League teams in the United States.

Davenport's bid to make Midwest history hit a wall in the winners' bracket final, where Henderson, Nev., beat it 14-6 on Wednesday, Aug. 26, according to KWQC. Henderson's Paseo Verde Little League went on to finish as the tournament runner-up to Pariba Little League of Willemstad, Curaçao.

None of that takes away from Sunday. For one afternoon in South Williamsport, a team from Iowa took a New Jersey squad that had not lost all summer and held it to a single infield hit. It was the kind of game Williamsport is built for.

Photo Credit: Vinnie Lucia/Undrafted