China women's softballers beat Chinese Taipei 9-1 with three homers including another grand slam in six innings of an international fast pitch tournament on Thursday evening.

 

In the second meet with younger-packed Chinese Taipei, China earned two runs in the first three innings when the starting pitcher Li Qi only surrendered two hits and no walk.

 

The game was seesawed by Chinese Taipei in the fourth and fifth in which infielder Tan Ying added another run to China and Chinese Taipei went still scoreless.

 

Chinese Taipei failed to hold on in the top sixth when its 17-year-old pitcher Chiu An Ju lost control of her throwing which allowed three homers to China.

 

Chinese catcher Guo Jia made a solo homer in the first bat of the inning. After teammate's two singles and a walk, infielder Yu Yanhong hit the team's second grand slam of the tournament to account for all four RBI of the game. Catcher Pan Xia contributed another solo homer.

 

The first grand slam was made by designated player Xin Minhong in the two teams' first meet on Wednesday.

 

Chinese Taipei gave a short hit-back in the bottom sixth when they earned the only run of the game with two singles and one double from China which failed to lead the game to the seventh.

 

"Their pitcher is too young to control our hitters but they did not give up," Yu Yanhong told Xinhua, noting that the team's head coach Wang Lihong had reminded that Chinese Taipei is a team hard to deal with.

 

In the second meet with Australia played earlier in the morning, China lost a 2-1 hard game in which Australia sent veteran players including one that had played three Olympic Games.

 

Canada beat Chinese Taipei 3-2 in another game played in the morning.

 

"My players have not achieved a steady performance," China head coach Wang Lihong said, "tough games with strong opponents like the second meet with Australia this morning could make them tough-minded."

 

The tournament, involving China, Chinese Taipei, Australia and Canada, will have the last day of preliminary games on Friday. Australia will meet Canada and Chinese Taipei and China will meet Canada.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2007)