"I don't think there has ever been a Little League manager in the World Series who has more clearly demonstrated the ideals of Little League Baseball than Tom Peavey," Little League president Stephen D. Keener said in a statement Thursday. "He had his team doing its best trying to win."

And there was the catch.

In the wake of Vancouver's elimination, the point was made that it would have qualified for the U.S. Pools finals had it laid down its bats in Wednesday's preliminary round finale against Davenport, Iowa.

Instead, Vancouver battled back only to lose 6-4 - creating a three-way tie for first place - and allowing Davenport and Bellaire, Texas, to clinch berths in the pool final.

The loss left three teams with 2-1 records, and Vancouver was the odd squad out.

Bellaire advanced because it wound up with the fewest runs allowed per inning by a margin of 0.059 runs fewer than Davenport.

And Davenport advanced by virtue of beating Vancouver.

Vancouver would have qualified ahead of Bellaire if it had scored two or fewer runs against Davenport. In that event, Davenport would have finished with the best runs-allowed ratio, and Vancouver would have qualified because of its win over Bellaire.

Following the loss, Peavey had no complaints.

"That's the way the rules were established, that's what we have to live by," Peavey said. "(Davenport) did everything they needed to do to be in the finals and they certainly deserve it."

Little League spokesman Lance Van Auken said he received about eight e-mails from fans "vehemently complaining" about the tiebreaking system. As well, Van Auken said he received about six inquiries from members of the media.

Said Keener: "(Vancouver) could have taken the low road, and they took the high road instead, and I think that's highly commendable."