Yen Cheng-hong scored a game-high 23 points and Su Hsiang-yi added another 17 against his former team as the Taiwan Mobile Leopards defeated the Dacin Tigers 89-79 at the Sinjhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night.
Their 10th win of the season was a big one for the Leopards in the sense that it gave them double-digit victories in an otherwise very disappointing season, considering that expectations were high for them coming into the season with the addition of Su and Marcus Dove (out nursing a shoulder injury).
The win also guaranteed a no-worse-than-sixth-place finish for Taiwan Mobile.
“I am still not satisfied with the way our backcourt played today,” Leopard head man Cheng Chih-long said after the game, referring to Su and fellow guard Wu Yong-ren’s sloppy play, despite the victory.
The backcourt tandem for the Leopards combined for five turnovers and as many assists in what Cheng considered to be a mediocre performance.
He had a point because the Leopards were playing against a Dacin squad that was missing four of five regular starters in the interests of protecting them from potential injuries.
The Tigers have already secured a third-seed berth in the post-season and the outcome of yesterday’s contest was of little consequence.
“I am quite pleased with the way our reserve players hung in there today without most of our regulars,” Dacin skipper Chiou Da-tsong said after the game.
Chiou rested top scorer Tien Lei and inside force Alexus Foyle for the entire game, as well as team captain Chang Chih-fong.
“It’s also good for our reserves to see some floor time,” Chiou said.
The Tigers will play their regular-season finale this evening against Bank of Taiwan.
Kinmen 86 Bank of Taiwan 75
Kinmen Kaoliang erupted for 29 points in the fourth quarter to turn a two-point deficit at the start of the fourth into an 86-75 win in the late game in Sinjhuang last night.
Lin Chih-long shot a perfect four-for-four from the field with a pair of free throws to account for a dozen of Kinmen Kaoliang’s 29 points in the decisive fourth to help his team pull off the upset win.
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