Taipei, June 25 (CNA) Taiwan's under-18 women's national basketball team held off a furious rally by South Korea to win its third consecutive game at the International Basketball Federation (FIFA) Asia U18 Championship for Women in Thailand Friday.
"I'm proud of the way the girls kept their composure," head coach Chen Mei-li said after Taiwan was forced to regroup in the final minute for an 84-82 victory after blowing a 20-point lead.
By edging the South Koreans, Taiwan virtually assured itself a berth in the final four of the tournament, which serves as a qualifying event for the FIBA World U19 Championship for Women to be held in Chile next year.
It will likely be joined by China, Japan and South Korea, because the other countries in the six-team preliminary round group, Malaysia and Kazakhstan, remain winless. Taiwan will play China Saturday and Japan Sunday in the last two games of the preliminary round. The top three teams in the tournament will represent Asia in Chile.
Taiwan maintained a lead throughout much of the game and had a 70-54 advantage after three quarters.
But the Koreans mounted a 12-3 run in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to pull close and actually grabbed a lead with 2: 45 left, behind three three-pointers from Cha Hongjin and nine points from Lee Seungah.
Chang Chi-fang paced Taiwan with a team-high 23 points while Lin Yu-ting had 19 points and Chang Yi-lin added 16.
The biennial competition had been dominated by China and South Korea, winners of 11 and seven U18 Asian titles, respectively, before Japan upset China to capture the gold medal for the first time in 2008. Taiwan has won silver and bronze three times each.
Twelve teams are participating in the biennial tournament, which runs June 23-30 in Surat Thani, Thailand. They are divided into two six-team levels -- the elite Level I and the qualifying Level II.
Teams play all other teams in their group, with the top four in Level I qualifying for the semifinals, while the top two Level II teams will play the bottom two Level I teams for a chance to enter Level I competition in the future. (By Chris Wang) enditem/ls