TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan will take on Japan in the championship round of the U18 BFA Asian Baseball Championship at Tianmu Baseball Stadium at 6:30 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 8).

Taking the mound for the home team will be Yang Nien-hsi (陽念希), a flame-throwing right-handed pitcher. Yang’s fastball topped out at 151 kilometers per hour in a previous appearance at the 13th U18 BFA Asian baseball championship.

Taiwan made its way to the championship round by defeating a powerful South Korean team earlier in group play. Taiwan then racked up three consecutive victories in group play before advancing to round-robin play, where it lost to Japan by a score of 0-1, per CNA.

In the first matchup with Japan, Taiwan pitchers dominated the mound, only allowing one hit. However, Japan resorted to "small ball” tactics to plate a run.

Later, Taiwan took on the Philippines on Saturday (Sept. 7) with submarine-style pitcher Chen Shih-chan (陳世展) going four shutout innings as Taiwan won by 9-0. Meanwhile, South Korea stymied Japan by a score of 1-0.

Thus, the total records of the three teams (Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea) were identical, leading to a Total Quality Balance (TQB) tiebreaker. TQB is the sum of runs scored divided by the number of innings played on offense, minus the number of runs allowed, divided by the number of innings played on defense.

After making such calculations, BFA officials determined that Taiwan and Japan would compete in the championship round.

Taiwan will be led on the mound by Yang Nien-hsi (陽念希), who was selected for the U18 team as a first-year high school student. He overcame a shaky performance in a prior international competition last year and hopes to flourish against a talented Japanese team.

Yang appeared earlier in the tournament against Thailand, where he pitched one inning and struck out three batters. Taiwan manager Wu Po-hung (吳柏宏) said Yang has shown an attacking fastball that has been able to overpower many batters.

Wu said the decision to go with Wu was also based upon starters Chen Mu-heng (陳睦衡) and Lin Po-chun (林鉑濬) requiring more rest after difficult starts against Japan and Korea.

Taiwan won the U18 Asian baseball championship in 2001 and 2007. It faces another opportunity to win the tournament for the first time in 17 years.