Archers win bronze, baseballers fall 5-4

Taiwan's women's archery team took home the nation's first medal yesterday, a bronze.

After being defeated in the semifinal by China 226-230 to which they had advanced after beating Germany, the Taiwan team beat France 242-228 in the playoff for third place.

The team consisted of Yuan Shu-chi (袁叔琪), who came in fourth in the individual competition and Wu Hui-ju (吳蕙如), who placed sixth in the individual, along with Chen Lli-ju (陳麗如).

"Finally we've fulfilled our promise to win the medal, especially since the entire Taiwan delegation has yet to get any others," said the team's coach, Tang Chin-lan (湯金蘭).

South Korea took the gold in the women's team event, beating China 241-240.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's baseball team lost a crucial match to Italy 5-4 yesterday on the fifth day of preliminary games and with it reduced their chance of making into the quarterfinals.

Going into the game with a record of two wins and two losses, Taiwan faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from the Italians, who had lost all four of their previous games.

"I did not expect that we could lose the match," said head coach Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明). "Now the situation is really disadvantageous ... we have to win the last two games."

Hsu blamed the loss on the poor performance of the pitchers.

Chang Chih-chia (張誌家) was the starter and struck out eight Italian batters in the first five innings. However, Italy scored its first run in the third inning when center fielder Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠) failed to catch a fly ball hit by James Buccheri.

Chen Chih-yuan made up for that error in the bottom of the third when he hit a single and then stole second. He got the team's first run after Chen Chin-feng (陳金鋒) hit a double.

Mario Chiarini hit a homerun in the fourth inning to give Italy a 2-1 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth Chen Yung-chi (陳鏞基) hit a single and then stole second. He ran home off Chen Chih-yuan's double to tie the score 2-2. A single by Peng Cheng-min (彭政閩) drove home Chen Chih-yuan and put Taiwan in the lead 3-2.

Italy drew even with a homerun in the sixth by Buccheri.

Lin En-yu's (林恩宇) pitching kept the heat on Italy in the seventh and eight innings, while Peng Cheng-min hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the seventh inning to make the score 4-3.

Disaster struck in the top of the ninth when Giuseppe Mazzanti hit a two-run homer off closer Yang Chien-fu (陽建福) and the Tai-wanese players were unable to score in their final at bat.

The baseball team must win its remaining two preliminary games -- against Japan today and the Netherlands tomorrow -- to make it into the semifinal round.

Also see story:

Archery pits the individual against personal pressure