BASEBALL/Taiwan team claims U.S. Pony Palomino World Series title

Taipei, Aug. 6 (CNA) A baseball team from Taiwan's New Taipei won the U.S. Pony Palomino Division World Series on Tuesday in Laredo, Texas, defeating the U.S. West representative team from Azusa, California 2-1.

Ku-Pao Home Economics & Commercial High School earned the right to represent Taiwan in the Pony Palomino (17-18 age group) World Series after winning this year's Wang Chen-Chih Cup, a competition named after Taiwanese-Japanese baseball legend Wang Chen-chih (王貞治), also known as Sadaharu Oh.

In the championship game against Azusa, Ku-Pao's starting pitcher Luo Yu-yan (羅于晏) was erratic early, giving up two hits in the bottom of the first inning, followed by a bunt and a wild pitch that allowed a run to score.

He then settled down and pitched four scoreless innings after that, yielding only two more hits.

Ku-Pao's offense struggled until the fifth inning, when a hit batter and a single by Tsai Sheng-jie (蔡琞傑) set the stage for back-to-back RBI hits from Chen Chen-jie (陳宸杰) and Zeng Sheng-an (曾聖恩) that gave the Taiwan team a 2-1 lead.

Tsai later came on to pitch the final two innings without yielding a run to give Ku-Pao the title.