INCHEON, South Korea—The Blu Girls wound up with a modest but fighting fourth-place finish in the 17th Asian Games by limiting powerhouse China to a 0-3 victory in the page system semifinals of softball on Wednesday.
The Filipinas made sure they weren’t routed this time as the Chinese did in the round-robin phase, where they scored an 8-2 victory. But the Chinese struck with two runs at the top of the second inning and scored another in the sixth frame to bag a showdown with Chinese Taipei for the right to face reining gold medalist Japan in Thursday’s final.
The Japanese went 6-0 in the Games—counting their sweep of the preliminaries—after a 13-5 crushing of the Taiwanese also on Wednesday at the Songo LNG Softball and Baseball Stadium.
Veronica Belleza manned the mound for the Blu Girls for the entire match and gave up five hits while striking two batters she faced and giving up one base on balls. Winner Wang Lan yielded three hits—against Luzviminda Embudo, Morgan Terresa Stuart and Marlyn Francisco—and had nine strikeouts.
The Blu Girls accomplished their goal of a modest semifinal stint in Asian Games softball the Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese traditionally dominate.
The Filipinas booked two wins in the Games. They opened with a 3-1 victory over the host South Koreans and capped the round-robin phase with a 13-0 four-inning demolition of Thailand on Tuesday.