National women's softball into world championship finals

Taipei, June 22 (CNA) Taiwan squeaked by Italy on Sunday in Prague to reach the 2027 Women's Softball World Cup Finals after losing a heartbreaker to Canada that left it one game away from elimination.

It was an important milestone for the team after failing to make the finals of the 2024 World Cup, which was won by Japan.

Three six-team pools are playing the first round of the World Cup this year, and the top two teams from each pool and two wild-card teams will advance to the finals in Australia in early April.

Taiwan seemed set to book its place in the finals with relative ease after steamrolling through the round-robin portion of Group A in Prague with a 5-0 record and a plus-37 run differential, including a 10-0 whitewash of second place Canada.

But in playoff games for the two guaranteed spots on Sunday, Taiwan's pitching struggled.

In the opening game for the top spot in the group, Canada jumped out to an improbable 5-0 lead in the first inning, but Taiwan eventually pulled even at 5-5 after seven innings to send the game into extra innings.

Both teams scored a run in the eighth but Canada put up two runs in the top of the ninth and Taiwan could only respond with one of its own to fall 8-7 to the Canadians.

Facing Italy (the winner of a playoff game between the third and fourth finishers in the group), Taiwan seemed to be in full control with a 7-1 lead after four innings.

The Italians drew closer with three runs in the top of the fifth, two on a bases-loaded two-out double, and then took the lead 8-7 in the top of the sixth with two two-run homers.

Taiwan responded in the bottom of the inning with the help of some shoddy defense, including an error by Italy's second baseman with two outs that allowed the go-ahead run to score.

Italy was retired in order in the seventh to end the game.

"We accepted the outcome of the game against Canada," said the team's head coach Han Hsin-lin (韓辛霖) to the tournament's official website.

"We used the time between the two games to identify the problems we had and work on solving them. When Italy took the lead, we knew it wasn't over. We never give up, you can take that for granted."

In Group A round-robin play, Australia finished third, Italy fourth, the Czech Republic fifth and Cuba last.

Groups B and C will be played in July and September, respectively, to determine the other spots in next year's finals.