Elephants Take it to Seven
It took 17 innings in an epic battle with the Brother Elephants coming out on top 5-4 over the Uni-President Lions. A maximum capacity crowd of 12,000 watched the battle, with a homerun from Wang Seng-Wai in the top of the 17th giving the Elephants the 5-4 lead. Lee Hao-Ren then retired the Lions in his second inning of relief work to get the win, striking out five of the six hitters he faced. It was the longest game in Taiwan playoff history, lasting 6 hours and 14 minutes.
The Elephants jumped out quickly in this game, scoring three runs in the top of the first, benefiting from one of five Lion errors to score three runs to take a quick 3-0 lead. The Lions struck right back for two in the bottom frame. Right away it was hold on to your horses, because this was going to be a wild one.
In the third Hsu Fong-Bing ripped a double to tie the game at 3-3 after three. Peng Cheng-Min broke the tie for the Elephants with a homerun in the top of the fifth. With a 4-3 lead going into the bottom of the ninth the Lions were able to tie it after the fourth error by the Elephants put a runner on base. Liu Fu-Hao drove him in with a single to take the game into extra innings.
Both teams had a number of chances in the extra innings with the Lions loading the bases twice and ultimately stranding 13 and the Elephants getting one bases loaded opportunity and stranding 19. The game was finally ended in the top of the 17th after a homerun from Wang.
For a more complete narrative of the game please go here: http://www.ibaf.org/index.php?id=10&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=431&tx_ttnews[backPid]=9&cHash=ac42eee595