A visitor approaching Stearns Champions Park in Long Beach will immediately be drawn to a unique display built into the side of the press box behind home plate: a glass-encased tribute to Long Beach Little League's 1992 and 1993 Little League World Series championship teams. With trophies, championship flags, photos, newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia -- even one of the Troll dolls that served as Long Beach's talisman is represented -- the display is a fitting tribute to a pair of teams that achieved the rare heights of consecutive championships in South Williamsport.

Stearns Champions Park was the site of the 2013 Southern California divisional championship series, and Long Beach played host to what was a rarity in the 2013 international tournament. Eastlake Little League from Chula Vista shut down a potent Sherman Oaks Southern Little League offense, allowing just a single unearned run over the final eleven innings of play, and swept to a pair of victories and the league's first-ever Southern California championship.

Eastlake broke away from an early 2-2 deadlock in the series opener, riding a two-run homer from Micah Wiggs and stellar relief pitching by lefthander Giancarlo Cortez to a 6-3 victory. The next day, righthander Nick Mora homered and twirled a three-hit shutout over five innings as Eastlake blanked their District 40 foes, 5-0.

The sweep vaulted Eastlake into the West Region tournament, and extended an international tournament run that eventually culminated in Eastlake winning the United States championship.

"Eastlake was just outstanding," said Sherman Oaks manager Chris Dollard. "Their pitching was great and just so consistent, and our hitters were just stumped. It's by far the best pitching we've faced."

Sherman Oaks' hitters were not stumped often in the international tournament -- the District 40 winners had homered at least once in every tournament game prior to the SoCal championship series, and cleared the fences five times in their North Sub-Divisional championship game win just prior to the series with Eastlake. But only one of Sherman Oaks' twelve hits in the two games against Eastlake went for extra bases.

Eastlake and Sherman Oaks Southern each plated two runs in the first inning of their series opener. Jake Espinosa sparked Eastlake's rally in the top of the inning with a one-out single, and after a second out, three consecutive walks forced in the game's first run. Rennard Williams then legged out an infield hit that scored Mora before Sherman Oaks escaped the jam.

Sherman Oaks got the runs back in the bottom of the inning, when Tyler Cox and Noah Taylor singled, and Stephen Richardson followed with a two-run single to right.

Eastlake manager Rick Tibbett then took a calculated gamble, and with the score tied, replaced Grant Holman, his top pitcher, as he crossed the 35-pitch mark two batters into the second inning. Tibbett wanted his ace eligible to pitch in a potential third game in the series, and turned the ball over to Cortez. The burly lefthander struck out ten over the remaining 4-2/3 innings, scattering six hits and not allowing a run until the final inning, when Eastlake had built a 6-2 lead.

"He was hitting his spots, and his off-speed pitches were working for him," said Dollard of the Eastlake reliever.

While Cortez stymied the Sherman Oaks offense, Eastlake's hitters showcased a disciplined, selective approach against a trio of Sherman Oaks pitchers. Eastlake's hitters drove pitch counts up by working deep into the count, with 15 of 32 batters extending their at-bats to four or more pitches. Eastlake tallied just eleven swinging strikes in the game.

Eastlake's patience was on display as the team took a 4-2 lead in the fourth. Ninth-place hitter Michael Gains worked a full count before walking, and Wiggs then looked at a pair of strikes and fouled a pitch off before lining a fastball over the center field fence.

Sherman Oaks loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning, but Cortez recorded a pair of called third strikes to escape the threat, and his team added two runs in the sixth when Espinosa grounded a run-scoring double to the right center field fence and later scored on a wild pitch.

The next day, Mora allowed just one Sherman Oaks baserunner past first base, and also launched a hanging breaking ball well beyond the center field fence for the game's first two runs. Cortez followed immediately with a solo shot, and Wiggs added a two-run homer in the fourth.

Sherman Oaks Southern managed no hits against Mora after a leadoff single in the third, and only hit one ball out of the infield after that point in the game.

"Everything's clicking right now -- the hitting, the pitching, we're playing together," said Tibbett, the Eastlake manager. "I don't think we made more than a couple of errors in our first eleven games."

Eastlake's path to the championship series included a pair of critical wins over Rancho San Diego Little League in the Section 7 tournament. Eastlake had lost twice to Rancho San Diego in the sectional for the 10-11 year old age division in 2012, but with many of the same players taking the field in 2013, Eastlake overwhelmed their opponent by a 10-0 margin in the winner's bracket final, and then rallied for an 11-8 win in the championship game.

The wins moved Eastlake into the South Sub-Divisional tournament, where the District 42 champions rolled to four victories. Eastlake opened with a 10-6 victory over Huntington Valley Little League -- Wiggs, Holman, Cortez, and Williams all homered in the win -- and then rallied from an early five-run deficit to top homestanding Corona National Little League, 12-8.

"Corona National made us work hard to win this game," said Tibbett. "We were down 6-1 after three innings, but in the fourth inning we came back to score nine runs to take the lead for good."

Eastlake followed those wins with a pair of triumphs over Highland Little League. First, Holman struck out thirteen hitters over 5-1/3 innings, and Eastlake hit a pair of home runs in a 10-3 victory, and two days later, Eastlake subdued the same team, 15-5 in five innings. Eastlake capitalized on three errors to build an early 4-0 advantage in the winner's bracket final meeting, then Cortez added a solo home run -- his third homer in two games -- and Holman broke things open with a grand slam in the fourth.

After Highland upended Corona National to reach the South Sub-Divisional championship game, Mora (grand slam in the second) and Wiggs (three-run shot in the third) paced the potent Eastlake offense as it moved into the divisional finals.

"When we started this (district competition in June), I knew we would run into them at some point," said Highland manager Mike Carpentier, whose son played on a travel team with three Eastlake players.

"We knew how good (Highland) were," said Tibbett of his championship game foe. Highland had reached the South Sub-Divisional championship game for the second consecutive year. "So that's why we had our number one (Holman) go on Monday."

Sherman Oaks also swept its way into the Southern California championship series, winning seven consecutive games in district and sectional play before dispatching three opponents in the North Sub-Divisional tournament. After opening the subdivisional with an 11-6 victory over LaVerne Little League, Sherman Oaks topped a familiar opponent when they edged Tustin Eastern Little League, 5-4. Tustin had defeated Sherman Oaks in the North Sub-Divisional championship game in the 9-10 year old division in 2011, before Sherman Oaks returned the favor in the 10-11 year old division in 2012 en route to winning the SoCal championship. This time, Taylor held the Orange County team hitless through four innings as Sherman Oaks built a 5-0 lead thanks in part to home runs by R.J. Schreck and Jake Robbins. Tustin narrowed the gap when Sean McLean and Ketch Gannon cleared the fences in the fifth, but Richardson struck out the side in the sixth to preserve Sherman Oaks' win.

The win moved Sherman Oaks' players into the North Sub-Divisional title game for the third consecutive summer, but their opponent would be new: Santa Maria Southside Little League rebounded from an opening round loss to Tustin Eastern with three consecutive wins, including a 9-5 decision over Tustin, to emerge from the bottom bracket. Santa Maria pressed Sherman Oaks to the limit, and the two teams combined for seven home runs in the game. The last of these was decisive, as Sherman Oaks' Ryan Dollard belted a walkoff three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh inning to give his team an 11-9 victory. Nick Martin and Ryan Dollard gave Sherman Oaks an early lead with first inning blasts, and pinch hitter Noah Gilder followed suit in the third. But Trevor Garcia's three-run blast in the third and Jaden LyBurtus' grand slam in the fourth gave Santa Maria a brief lead. Taylor launched a solo shot in the bottom of the fifth that drew Sherman Oaks level and ultimately forced extra innings, before Ryan Dollard's heroics ended the game in the seventh.

The win moved Sherman Oaks into its duel with Eastlake, and the Chula Vista team's pitching proved to be too strong for its Northern foe. Eastlake went on to blank Belmont-Redwood Shores Little League (Northern California), 9-0, in the West Region championship game in San Bernardino, California, and won four consecutive games to open the Little League World Series. The last of these, a 12-1 victory over Westport (Connecticut) Little League, gave Eastlake the United States championship. Eastlake finished as the Little League World Series runner-up following a 6-4 championship game defeat against Musashi Fuchu Little League (Tokyo, Japan).