Bank of Taiwan pulled off a major upset in the Year of the Monkey by stunning second-place d Taiwan Beer in an 80-74 final at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night to force a tie for the fifth-place spot in the standings.
Lee Wei-che and Chen Li-huan made the most of their opportunities to start by downing four points each in the final three minutes of the game to lead the Bankers past a resilient Brew Crew.
The Beermen had rallied from as many as 15 points down in the third quarter to tie the game in the fourth before faltering late in the contest to drop what many had thought to be an easy win for the men in green.
The classic battle between David and Goliath caught many by surprise, as the Bankers opened the match with Chen Kuo-wei and Luke Nevill combining for 15 of their team’s 22 points to lead Taiwan Beer by three after the first quarter.
The Bankers took their game out to the perimeters in the second quarter, with five three-pointers from behind the arc, outscoring Taiwan Beer 24-22 for an unexpected 46-41 advantage at halftime.
Bank of Taiwan managed to up their lead to as much as 15 in the third, with Chang Po-sheng and Chen Hsuan-hsiang netting four each before the Brew Crew went on an 8-2 run of their own to keep the deficit to less than 10 by the end of the period.
That was when the Brew Crew decided to shift into another gear, with Liu Cheng and Lu Chi-min championing a rally that tied the game up with about four minutes left on the clock.
That set up Lee and Chen Li-huan’s late-game heroics as the Bankers held on for the victory.
TIGERS 96, LUXGENS 90
The Dacin Tigers snapped a three-game losing streak against the Yulon Luxgens by edging past the Automakers in a 96-90 final in the second game in New Taipei City last night to close out the weekend on a high note.
Lin Guan-luen scored 19 points in the second half and Bryan Davis got 17 as the Dacin scoring pair teamed up for 36 of their club’s 50 points in the second half, denying the Automakers what would have been a valiant comeback.
A 9-0 run by the Tigers late in the second quarter gave the Cats a 46-41 cushion at halftime in a game that went back and forth between the two squads.
Dacin added another nine to their lead with Lin orchestrating an 8-0 run midway through the third quarter to seemingly put the game out of the Automakers’ reach.
However, the diehard Luxgens were able to answer with an 11-2 run at the start of the fourth quarter to pull within two, with Liam McMorrow getting back-to-back three-pointers.
Their hopes of a victory were shortlived though, with Lin nailing a pair of long balls from downtown and four straight free-throws down the stretch to keep the Luxgens from turning the tide late in the game.
Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) yesterday beat Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in their women’s singles semi-final match to advance to today’s final at the Thailand Open. The top-seeded Tai overcame a 10-21 first-game loss to seventh seed and former world champion Ratchanok to dominate the final two games 21-13, 21-19 in 58 minutes of play at the Impact Arena in Bangkok. World No. 2 Tai is today to face world No. 4 Chen Yufei of China. Chen yesterday bested Pusarla Venkata Sindhu 21-17, 21-16 to secure her spot in the final of the Super 500 tournament. On Friday, Tai overpowered China’s He Bingjiao 21-10,
Wimbledon, widely regarded as the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, was on Friday stripped of ranking points by the sport’s main tours in a move that threatens to reduce the Grand Slam to the status of a high-profile exhibition event. The decision by the ATP and WTA was in response to Wimbledon banning Russian and Belarusian players following the invasion of Ukraine. “It is with great regret and reluctance that we see no option but to remove ATP Ranking points from Wimbledon for 2022,” an ATP statement said. “Our rules and agreements exist in order to protect the rights of players as a
Defending champions Taichung Blue Whale thrashed Taoyuan Mars 6-0 in Taiwanese women’s soccer over the weekend, while Hualien City rolled on with their fourth win to sit atop the league table. While Thai fullback Pitsamai Sornsai partnered with compatriot goalkeeper Nattaruja Muthtanawech on defense, Japanese midfielder Maho Tanaka opened the scoring for Blue Whale in Saturday’s match, kicking a screamer on a volley from outside the penalty box — her first goal of the season. The match remained 1-0 heading into the break, although Taoyuan Mars striker Ho Chia-huan, a student at Hsing Wu High School in New Taipei City, had good
Faced with a machete, a fighter leaps and locks his legs around another man’s neck, bringing him crashing down to a cacophony of cheers. This is vovinam, Vietnam’s acrobatic martial art with roots dating back to the country’s struggle for independence, and it is showing at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games for the first time since 2013. Proponents are trained to use not only their hands and legs to grapple a rival to the ground, but also fend off assailants armed with blades. Short for “Vo Viet Nam” (literally “Vietnamese martial arts”) it was inspired by nationalists who sought an end to the
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