BASEBALL/Taiwan to vie for U-18 Asian Baseball Championship bronze medal

Taipei, Sept. 12 (CNA) Taiwan is set to face the Philippines in the U-18 Asian Baseball Championship third-place playoff following a 2-1 loss to Japan on Saturday.

The loss ended the Taiwanese team's super-round campaign, with Japan advancing to Sunday's final against South Korea.

All three runs were scored in the first inning, when Taiwan briefly took the lead before Japan immediately responded.

Hu Chen-jui (胡辰睿) drew a leadoff walk, moved to second on Chang Yi-an's (張乙安) sacrifice bunt and reached third on a wild pitch before scoring on Liu Huan-yu's (劉桓宇) groundout.

Japan answered with two outs in the bottom half of the first inning. Yusei Ishida reached on an infield single before Ritora Yamada hit an RBI double and Kenshin Manya followed with a run-scoring single, giving Japan a 2-1 lead.

Neither team scored again over the remaining six innings.

Japanese starter Shoki Oda allowed one run on three hits over six innings, striking out seven while issuing five walks. Manya pitched a scoreless seventh to secure the win.

Taiwan starter Liu Jen-yu (劉任右) surrendered two runs on six hits over 4 2/3 innings, recording seven strikeouts without issuing a walk.

Wu Hao-siang (吳皓翔) held Japan hitless over the final 1 1/3 innings, but Taiwan could not erase the deficit despite finishing with four hits and drawing five walks.

Taiwan defeated the Philippines 10-0 in five innings on Friday. The bronze-medal game will begin at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Taipei Dome, followed by the championship game at 6:30 p.m.