Chiayi County’s National Tung-shih Senior High School pulled off a surprise 5-4 win over Nan Ying Vocational High School of Tainan City on Tuesday to advance into the Elite Eight round in the annual High School Baseball Taiwan Championship.
Wang Wei-chiang’s suicide squeeze with the bases loaded capped a two-run eighth that broke a 3-all deadlock and National Tung-shih held off a late-game rally by Nan Ying that brought them to within a run to escape with the big “W” in Sinjhuang (新莊), Taipei County.
Back-to-back singles by Lu Jia-ho and Tsai Cheng-long, in addition to a costly error by the Nan Ying defense, set up Tsai Chih-yu’s two-run groundout that put National Tung-shih ahead 2-0 in the top of the third.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The underdogs tacked on another run in the fifth, courtesy of Tsai Chih-yu’s one-run single off Nan Ying starter Lee Dien-ting.
Nan Ying finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Lin Shu-yi’s liner up the middle drove in a pair of runs off reliever Huang Pei-yuan before Lai Wei-yu’s clutch single off Huang two batters later tied the game up at 3-all.
Neither team managed to score in the sixth and seventh until National Tung-shih took its second lead of the game with a two-run eighth.
Nan Ying got one of the two runs back in the bottom of the same inning when Lin drew a bases-loaded walk off Huang that made it 4-5 in favor of National Tung-shih. But that was as close as they got as the National Tung-shih reliever calmly induced a chopper to second for an inning-ending out that left the bases loaded for Nan Ying before closer Wu Cheng-hsuen got the final three outs in the ninth to preserve the win.
Huang was credited with the win for his four innings of sound relief while his counterpart Soong Jia-hao was tagged with the loss for allowing the go-ahead runs to score in the eighth.
The loss by Nan Ying eliminated them from qualifying for the Elite Eight for the first time in eight consecutive seasons.
KAO YUAN 4, PING JEN 0
Behind a one-hit effort by starter Chen Sheng-nan, Kaohsiung County’s Kao Yuan Senior High School blanked Taoyuan County’s Ping Jen Senior High School 4-0 in Sanchong (三重) on Tuesday to advance into the Elite Eight.
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