Chiayi County’s National Tung-shih Senior High School earned a convincing 5-1 win over Pingtung County’s Mei Ho Senior High School at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday to advance into the semi-final round in the High School Baseball Taiwan Championship.
Staff ace Tsai Chih-yu went the distance in a two-hit gem with a solid fastball clocked just over 140kph and a wicked slider that broke hard and late to confuse the Mei Ho hitters all game long. Other than a two-out double following a walk that drove in higher-seeded Mei Ho’s lone run of the game in the top of the third, Tsai was virtually untouchable.
National Tung-shih surprised Mei Ho by leading off the bottom of the first with three straight hits, highlighted by Chang Hsuen-yu’s two-run single before Wu Wei-chi’s sacrifice-fly knocked in the third run of the game to give Tung-shih a quick 3-0 lead against Mei Ho starter Hsu Cheng-chi.
Hsu left the game in the bottom of the third for giving up a walk and a single to place a pair of runners on with one out after his offense managed to score a run in the top of the inning to cut National Tung-shih’s lead to 3-1.
National Tung-shih took a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the third that was more than ample for Tsai as he retired all but three of the next 21 hitters he faced to pick up the win.
As for Mei Ho, the three early runs allowed by Hsu proved to be fatal as it trailed the entire way en route to an elimination loss.
Also on Wednesday, Kao Yuan Senior High School beat Qiang Shu High School 7-2.
Marloon Herrera was crying — happy tears. With Cuba trailing in the fifth inning of its Little League World Series (LLWS) opener on Thursday, Herrera lined a two-run double to give his team the lead. When the Czech Republic, representing Europe-Africa, made a pitching change, he ran over to give his third base coach a hug. Cuba went on to win 4-1. It was the first game at this year’s tournament for both sides, but it was also the beginning of Cuba’s second appearance in the series ever — and it was emotional. “You breathe baseball in Cuba,” manager Everaldo Machado said on
Taiwan on Friday beat Australia 11-0 at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Taiwan are represented at the tournament by Taoyuan’s Gueishan Elementary School, who won the Asia-Pacific regional tournament to earn the trip to the US. Australia are represented by the Hills Red team from Sydney. Taiwan advanced to a game tomorrow against Santa Clara, representing Cuba, who won 4-1 against the Czech Republic’s Brno, the Europe-Africa regional qualifiers. Australian starter Sayre Howick had a tough time controlling his pitches at Volunteer Stadium, one of which allowed Taiwan to open their account. They scored six in the inning and
World Boxing, an international amateur boxing organization formed last year after a breakdown in relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Association (IBA), has announced the admission of Taiwan, along with four other nations, into its growing list of members. In a statement released on its Web site on Friday, the Swiss- based organization said that in addition to Taiwan, admitted as Chinese Taipei, Bhutan, Ecuador, Fiji and Pakistan have also become members. The new members all have well-rounded national and international boxing programs as well as transparency in the leadership and management of their national boxing programs,
COOLED DOWN: Du Plessis apologized after the fight for comments about his Nigerian-born opponent, after Adesanya said he planned to take the belt back to Africa South African Dricus du Plessis yesterday took a flurry of body hits across four rounds before defeating Israel Adesanya by submission to retain his middleweight championship at UFC 305. After scoring some early takedowns, Du Plessis (22-2) had to withstand a flurry of body strikes from Adesanya through the middle rounds, which appeared to be taking a toll on the 30-year-old South African as the fight progressed. However, a left hook followed by three rights helped bring Adesanya down, giving Du Plessis the opening he wanted as he swiftly got the choke hold that forced the Nigerian-born New Zealander to tap out