And it did so at the expense of West O'ahu, a team that returned 9 of 12 players from last year's Majors Division (ages 11-12) Little League World Series championship team.

Monday's state championship game went down to the wire at Kapolei with West O'ahu's Layson Aliviado being tagged out at the plate by Ed Izumigawa for the last out of 6-5 Pearl City victory.

Aliviado tried to score from second on a hit to left by Alaka'i Aglipay.

Left fielder Justin Protacio hit third baseman Shane Nakata with a perfect throw, and Nakata's relay to the plate was well ahead of Aliviado but to Izumigawa's right.

Izumigawa dived back toward the plate, and Aliviado jumped over him and the plate to avoid the tag. Izumigawa then ran up to Aliviado and applied the tag to end the game.

Pearl City scored four unearned runs, including three in the fifth when it took a 6-2 lead.

West O'ahu scored two in the bottom half and another in the seventh on a fielding error by the third baseman.

Kahana Neal picked up the win with 6 1/3 innings, and A.J. Johnson got the final two outs for the save.

West O'ahu beat 'Aiea, 10-6, earlier in the day to stay alive in the double-elimination tournament. It needed to beat Pearl City twice to win the title.