National Taiwan Normal University proved National Taiwan University of Science and Technology to be mortal in a 94-63 rout at Fu Jen Catholic University in New Taipei City yesterday afternoon, handing the Techies their first defeat in the three games played in the second round so far.
The win not only paved a clear path for the top-ranked National Taiwan Normal into the upcoming Final Four in Sinjhuang, New Taipei City, but also ended the Cinderella run for the Techies, who had pulled off back-to-back upset victories in their two previous contests to keep their title hopes alive after barely making it into the second round with a dismal 3-4 mark in the preliminaries.
“We knew [the run] would end at some point, we just didn’t know when it would happen,” Techie skipper Lee Yong-hsiang said after the game.
Photo courtesy of the UBA
His crew needed to run the table in all six of their second-round games just to have an outside chance to make it into the Final Four. However, for two days, with their two big wins against formidable opponents, the Techies actually had their fans talking about making the trip to Sinjhuang early next month for a chance to take the Holy Grail of the nation’s college hoops fans.
Fresh off a down year in which they finished at a humbling No. 4 spot in the final standings after having won three straight titles, National Taiwan Normal entered this post-season as clearly the team to beat, with an awesome 6-1 record in the preliminaries.
Freshman shooter Yu Huan-ya led the Future Educators with a team-high 14 points, while the Techies’ Ni Hsueh-chien led all scorers with 19 in a losing effort.
OTHER RESULTS
In other University Basketball Association action yesterday, I-Shou University beat Shoufu University 80-60, while National Taiwan University of Arts defeated Hsing Wu University 74-64. National Kaohsiung Normal University beat Mingdao University 63-53, while Chinese Culture University routed a hapless Shih Hsin University 86-48.
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