Taiwan’s national university baseball team bounced back from a disappointing loss at the World University Baseball Championship to rout Sri Lanka 21-0 in five innings in Tokyo yesterday.
The Taiwanese team is scheduled to play Canada for fifth place today in Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu Stadium.
WORST SHOWING
Whether Taiwan win or lose that game, however, this year will be its worst showing at the tournament. Taiwan finished third in 2008, second in 2006 and fourth in 2004 and 2002.
In the quarter-final game against Japan on Wednesday, Taiwan was shut down 13-0 in seven innings.
The defeat dealt a devastating blow to the team, but also served as a great lesson, said team manager Yeh Chih-shien, who has participated in all five tournaments.
“These players are among the best at the college and amateur level in Taiwan,” he said. “We’ve learned from the loss that Taiwan still has a long way to go to compete with the best teams in the world,” he added.
By yesterday, the team had reorganized and it spanked 19 hits against Sri Lanka. Newcomer Huang Yi-kun had three hits, including two home runs, and drove in six runs.
INCONSISTENT OFFENSE
Yeh, who was not happy with Taiwan’s inconsistent offense, said that the key against Canada would once again be the team’s offensive performance.
The semi-finalists in the tournament are Cuba, South Korea, the US and host Japan.
The tournament ends tomorrow.
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