Everybody loves a winner until they win too much.

There are few exceptions to this rule in sports, but one comes to mind quickly: Hawaii in the Little League World Series.

And, yes, of course, I get it that “everybody” isn’t really everybody … especially if you’ve got a reason to root for the opponents.

But baseball-playing kids from Hawaii — no matter how much they’ve won since 2005 — have yet to wear out their welcome at South Williamsport, Pa.

Including when Ewa Beach first did it in 2005, teams from here have won the LLWS four times. They also finished runner-up in 2010.

It’s the most Little League World Series championships for any state in that period, by any measure. California has three, and then Georgia is next with two. New York, Michigan and Louisiana are tied with one each (international teams and COVID-19 account for the other years).

What do those five states behind Hawaii in championships have in common? Populations much larger than ours.

Census figures tell us California is the most populated state, with 39,538,223 residents in 2020. New York was fourth, Georgia eighth, Michigan 10th and Louisiana 25th. Hawaii, with 1,455,271, was 40th.

That probably figures into it; it’s hard to hate little guys from a little state for winning, especially in Little League.

Then there’s the Aloha Spirit. Hawaii teams won the Jack Losch Little League Baseball World Series Team Sportsmanship Award twice in four years, including in 2018, when Hawaii won the series.

The ’24 LLWS starts today, with a team from Hawaii representing the U.S. West Region for the fifth time since 2018. A streak of four Hawaii appearances at South Williamsport was interrupted by COVID-19 in 2020, and then finally halted last year in the regionals.

This year’s team is an overachieving underdog, even by Hawaii’s lofty standards for such. It had to win three elimination games in the state tournament and two in the West Regional to get to South Williamsport.

Their resilience should be no surprise, though. They’re from Maui, with one of the players, second baseman Kolten Magno, hailing from Lahaina.

Normally, kids from his part of the island play in the Lahaina Little League. But Magno received a waiver to play in the Central East Maui Little League because his family’s home was among the structures destroyed by the wildfires of Aug. 8, 2023.

Magno now lives with 14 relatives in a three-bedroom house that was spared by the fire, said Keith Amemiya, who is facilitating fundraising efforts for the family via the www.lunastrong.org website.

This team has two things you need to win: fighting spirit and a dominant pitcher.

The latter is Evan Tavares, a hard-throwing 5-foot-10 lefty who possesses a wide array of breaking pitches.

“It seems pretty likely that Evan Tavares and Kolten Magno will be media darlings,” said Rob Collias, a reporter with MauiNow.com who has covered sports on the Valley Isle for nearly 40 years. “Evan is the team beacon, its inspiration. They’re all aware of what he and his family have gone through, and continue to go through.”