Taiwanese athletes picked up another four medals at the East Asian Games yesterday, but the team dropped a place on the medals table as Hong Kong picked up two more gold medals.
Taiwanese shooter Tu Yi Yi-tzu picked up a silver medal in the women’s individual 10m air pistol competition and then added another in the 10m air pistol team competition alongside her teammates Wu Chia-ying and Yu Ai-wen.
The women’s badminton team — Chen Hsiao-huan, Chen Shih-ying, Cheng Wen-hsing, Chiang Kai-hsin, Hsieh Pei-chen, Kuo Yu-wen, Pai Hsiao-ma, Tai Tzu-ying, Tsai Pei-ling and Wang Pei-ron — also picked up a silver medal, while in the fencing, the women’s team in the sabre category — Chen Yu-ling, Lin Yi-chun, Chen Hui-hsuan and Wu Yi-chi — claimed the bronze.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
China led the medals table at press time yesterday with 75 gold medals, followed by South Korea with 20 and Japan with 15. Hong Kong overtook Taiwan to claim fourth place with seven gold medals after they won both the men’s and women’s team squash competitions, while Taiwan slipped to fifth place with five gold, 11 silver and 17 bronze.
BASKETBALL
By Paul Huang
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Contributing reporter
Taiwan made it two wins in a row with an 83-59 win over Guam in their second preliminary game in the men’s basketball competition at the East Asian Games in Tianjin yesterday afternoon to remain unbeaten at 2-0 in the tournament.
Doug Creighton made the most of his starting assignment with a game-high 19 points to lead Taiwan, highlighted by a stunning eight-for-12 shooting from the field with three three-pointers to his credit.
Coming into the game as heavy favorites, Taiwan did not play their regular starters as much as usual in the interest of resting them while giving the reserve players more floor time. That kept Guam in the game for a good part of the first half as they trailed the Taiwanese by one after the opening quarter and kept the deficit to seven points for a 32-25 score at the half.
That was the extent Guam managed to keep pace with Taiwan as they rolled off a 21-10 run in the decisive third quarter and topped it with a 30-point fourth to come away with a landslide victory.
Three different players scored in double-digits for Taiwan compared with Guam’s one, with Liu Cheng and Tsai Wen-cheng also turning in solid performances for skipper Hsu Chin-che.
Next up for Taiwan in Group A play will be Mongolia, who topped Guam by a dozen in their opener on Wednesday afternoon. The Islanders should not have too much trouble in this game as they are expected to earn the top berth out of the group after edging past South Korea in the opener by a 79-76 margin on Wednesday.
BASEBALL
By Paul Huang
Contributing Reporter
Failing to uphold an early 3-0 lead, Taiwan allowed hosts China back in the game with an eighth-inning rally that tied the score at 3-all, before yielding the game-winner in the bottom of the tenth to lose a 4-3 decision in extra innings in the baseball preliminaries of the East Asian Games at the Tianjin Sports Center’s Baseball Field yesterday afternoon.
It was the first defeat that the Islanders suffered after winning all four of their previous matches in the preliminaries. Even though the loss did not affect their chances for advancement into the medal rounds, it should serve as a wake-up call for them as they look to finish the preliminaries strong with a tough battle against South Korea tomorrow afternoon.
What should have been a relatively easy win turned into a dog fight for the Islanders as they failed to solve the stellar pitching of China reliever Li Xin, who came on in the fourth and held the previously unbeaten Taiwanese to two hits the rest of the way en route to claim just China’s third victory over Taiwan in international baseball competitions.
“Our batters were a bit surprised at how effective Li was; the scouting report did not say that Li had as good command in all his pitches as he did in the game,” Taiwan manager Lu Ming-tzu said after the game.
His troops were held to only three early runs off China starter Yang Hai-fan after averaging over 20 runs per game in their four previous contests.
Taiwan will take a well deserved day off today before tomorrow’s showdown against South Korea, in which a win can still give them the top-seed berth in the medal rounds.
The opening pitch is scheduled for 1pm.
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