Squandering a slim lead twice in the same game, Taiwan were forced into playing extra innings before topping a diehard South Korea 7-3 in the second round of the 25th IBAF Under-18 Baseball World Championship at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday afternoon.
After blowing a two-run lead in the bottom of the sixth on a close balk call against reliever Tseng Jen-ho, who scored the tying run, Taiwan reclaimed a 3-2 advantage in the top of the seventh on the strength of an RBI single by Sen Yu-pin.
Tseng took the lead into the ninth after getting a nice play from shortstop Lin Tzu-wei, who gunned down the potential tying run at the plate in the bottom of the seventh, but failed to close out the deal in the ninth as he surrendered a two-out blooper single to South Korea’s Song Jun-suk to allow the hosts to tie the game three-all.
The ninth-inning letdown did not carry into extra innings as they strung together three base hits to drive in four and held South Korea scoreless in a bases-loaded jam to keep the win intact.
Canada 10, Panama 1
Canada erupted for eight runs over the first four innings to grab a commanding 8-0 lead over Panama and went on to win it by a 10-1 margin at the Mokdong Baseball Stadium early yesterday afternoon in their final contest of the preliminaries to finish with a 4-1 record that is good enough to advance into the second round of play.
Starter Brock Dykxhoorn tossed 7-1/3 innings of one-run ball on a three-hit gem to keep Panamas’ offense at bay, while Brett Siddall’s pair led an offense that connected on eight two-baggers to humble the opposing pitchers.
United States 6, Australia 2
Team USA dealt Australia a 6-2 blow at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon, sending the squad from Down Under into the classification round.
Reese McGuire’s clutch single with a runner on third broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fifth in favor of the Americans to amass a 6-0 lead heading into the top of the ninth.
The Aussies tried to rally with two runs in the ninth and managed to load up the sacks with two outs before American closer Kevin Davis came out of the bullpen and delivered the game-ending strikeout to strand the tying run at the plate.
In other IBAF play, it was:
‧ Colombia 3, Japan 0
‧ Canada 1, US 0, 10 inns
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