Behind a game-high 22 points by Liu Chan, Taiwan Beer upended Bank of Taiwan 83-68 at the Changhua County Gymnasium yesterday afternoon to improve to 5-2 for the season.
Rookie sensation Chiang Yu-an had a big day at the office with 19 points on seven-for-10 shooting to take the scoring burden off Liu and Taiwan Beer center Patrick O’Bryant as the Brew Crew dominated the first half and held off the Bankers in an evenly fought second to run away with an impressive win.
“[Liu] had a big game for us today. It was a great all-around effort from him,” Taiwan Beer head coach Yen Chia-hua said after the game.
Photo: Liao Yau-tung, Taipei Times
Liu’s season-high six steals was a highlight.
Coming into the game with a 1-1 record in the past week, second-placed Taiwan Beer needed a big win to keep pace with league leaders Pure Youth Construction.
And that was exactly what they got as they opened the game with a 20-15 lead in the first quarter and upped the difference to 16 with a 26-15 second spell to take a convincing 46-30 lead at the half.
That was more than enough for the men in the green-and-white uniforms as they led the entire way, despite several mini-rallies by the Bankers.
BRAVES 88, TIGERS 82
The Fubon Braves followed their big win over the Yulon Luxgens on Friday night with a victory over the Dacin Tigers in Changhua last night for their fourth straight “W.”
Trailing by as many as seven in the fourth quarter, the Braves cashed in on a late-game scoring drought by the Tigers, making a strong push and hitting their free throws down the stretch to prevent the Tigers from winning their third in a row.
“We played three-and-a-half quarters of solid basketball, but could not keep it together down the stretch to seal the win,” Dacin skipper Hsu Chih-chao said after the game.
His team were a couple of shots away from victory, a big improvement considering their horrendous 0-5 start.
They fell to 2-6 for the season.
PURE YOUTH 90, LUXGENS 82
A 13-0 run by Pure Youth Construction in the fourth rallied them from as many as seven down in the second half to escape with a win over the Yulon Luxgens last night.
Yulon knocked down six three-pointers in a 27-point third. However, that did not rattle the three-time defending champs, who took advantage of the Automakers with a game-turning run early in the fourth to skid ahead for good.
Close-game experience on the part of the Builders was the difference, though the Luxgens nearly pulled off an upset with 15-for-27 shooting from beyond the three-point arc, including seven from Lu Cheng-rue.
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