Taiwan's team made a miraculous comeback in the Asian Games baseball semifinals yesterday, overturning a 5-0 deficit to defeat Japan 6-5, while 17-year-old archer Yuan Shu-chi (袁叔琪) won the nation's only gold of the day.
Japan was cruising by the end of the fifth inning, leading Taiwan 5-0. But then Taiwan came right back with four runs in the sixth inning and the tying run in the ninth. In the first extra inning, Taiwan got the go-ahead run and a place in the final.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Home runs from Chen Chien-wei (陳建偉) and Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠) tipped the balance offensively in favor of Taiwan, while pitcher Sun Chao-chi (宋肇基) had a poor start and gave up six hits in 2.1 innings of work. Wang Chien-ming (王建民) came to the rescue, pitching 7.2 innings and giving up just three hits and striking out 10.
Taiwan will now face favorites South Korea in the final today at 6pm local time, 5pm in Taiwan. The Koreans beat China 7-2 in the other semifinal.
In archery, Nantou County native Yuan nearly didn't make it to the semifinal as she shot a disappointing 96 from 12 rounds against Dola Banerjee. Fortunately, the Indian archer couldn't do any better and Yuan took the playoff 9-8.
In the semifinal against South Korean Olympic champion Yun Mi-jin, Yuan was inspired, reeling off a score of 113, easily defeating Yun with 106. Yun eventually won the bronze.
Honors were shared in most of the rounds in the final against South Korean Kim Mun-joung, but Yuan's adversary dropped shots on the third round and then again in the 10th to hand the teen her gold medal, Taiwan's only medal of the day.
Going into the final round, Yuan needed only a six to win but closed out with a seven, while her dispirited opponent could only manage a nine (a bullseye is 10).
Yuan said she had not expected to win a medal and therefore had been calm going into the semifinal against Yun.
"I did not expect to beat the Olympic champion so I was not nervous when I played her," Yuan said.
"When it came to the final I was not too worried again because I had already beaten the Olympic champion and was assured of a medal," she said.
Yuan said she was happy but tired and would now concentrate on preparing for the Olympic Games, though she thought it would be difficult to juggle the twin demands of practicing for her event and completing her schoolwork.
Taiwan's basketball women were also on song at the Geumjeong Gymnasium, beating Japan 103-78, for the first time in 18 games.
The last win came 12 years ago.
Spurred on by point and shooting guard veteran Chien Wei-chuan (錢薇娟) -- who has tried out for the WNBA in the US and scored 17 points -- Taiwan was the more active team on the day.
Center Cheng Hui-yun (
Coach Hung Ling-yao (洪玲瑤) said though winning the preliminary game was not crucial in terms of winning a medal it had been time to stop the rot and beat its bogey team.
"Maybe this match was not important in some respects but it was important for us to win today and reverse our losing trend."
In tennis, there were contrasting results, with Jimmy Wang (
Taiwan's women's singles hopes were quashed with losses for Hsieh Su-wei (
Taiwan has a total of 32 medals, including six golds, eight silvers and 18 bronzes. Taiwan is ranked eighth of the 44 competing nations.
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