Pure Youth Construction pulled off a stunning late-game run to erase a three-point deficit in the fourth quarter, topping the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 83-77 at the New Taipei City Sports Complex in Sinjhuang yesterday afternoon to start the new Super Basketball League (SBL) season with a bang.
James Mao scored a game-high 24 points, including a dozen in the decisive fourth, to lead a young Pure Youth attack that had six different players registering double-digit scores to edge past Taiwan Mobile.
“I knew I had to improve myself or spend a lot time on the bench, so I worked extra hard to shed a few pounds during the offseason,” Pure Youth’s Chien Jia-hong said after the game.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
He dropped almost 10kg with a rigorous weight control regimen during the offseason to boost his game, which was evident in the contest.
Pure Youth began with a speedy 22-16 run in the first quarter and added to their lead to close out the first half with a decent 39-31 advantage.
However, the momentum shifted in favor of the Leopards as guards Wu Yong-ren and Su Hsiang-yi combined to register 15 points in a 29-18 third-quarter run to erase the halftime deficit and give their team a 60-57 advantage heading into the final quarter.
Mao made sure the victory would belong to Pure Youth as he converted 10 of 11 from the free-throw line with the game on the line to help his team halt a valiant comeback by the Leopards and snatch the victory.
Newly arrived US import Rashad Jones-Jennings did not have a good showing offensively as he was held scoreless in more than 24 minutes of play.
However, the 26-year-old from Chatanooga, Tennessee, did manage to grab 11 rebounds that helped his team earn a slight 34-33 edge in the rebounding department.
As for the Leopards, newcomer Marcus Dove wowed the crowd with a couple of thunderous slams on a 24-point effort, but failed to sufficiently rally his team late in the game as they fell short by a half-dozen to start the season with a disappointing defeat.
LUXGENS 69, TIGERS 60
The Yulon Luxgens outfought the Dacin Tigers in yesterday evening’s showdown to light up the new season with an impressive win.
The rematch of last season’s championship finalists was anything but close as the defending champs held the Tigers scoreless for almost five minutes to open with a surprising 12-0 lead.
Even though the Tigers chipped away at a deficit that grew as large as 15 points to reduce it to as little as five points in the fourth, it was too little too late for them as they fell short by nine to lose their season-opener.
Tseng Wen-ding led all scorers with 19 on the night to go with his 13 rebounds and seven blocked-shots.
The premier Yulon center showed betrayed no signs of rustiness after sitting out the preseason because of contractual disputes.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier