New Zealand stays alive for Super Round

New Zealand with a 5-1 victory over Korea, kept their hopes alive for a berth in the Super Round.

Defeating Korea this evening in their second Group A match in the WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania Qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at the Shanghai Chongming Sports Training Center, will see them battle it out with Philippines for the runner-up spot tomorrow to make the Super round.

Host China tops the Group currently with two wins in the Group and have their final game against Korea who join Indonesia, to have their dreams for the single Tokyo Olympics dashed with two consecutive losses.

The Koreans who had gone down 1-10 to Philippines on the opening day on Tuesday, tired hard to match the Sox, even after the early deficit and did not see them give up.

New Zealand took an early three run lead in the bottom 1 with Lara Andrews and Stepanie Smith off a Krysta Hoani singles to the right center and Hailey Breakwell adding another off Pallas Potter singles to the right field.

The Kiwis went on to add two runs in the next inning when Breakwell’s singles saw Angelle Van Molendorf and Kingsley Avery add on for a 5-0 lead.

But the Koreans held up well for the next innings to deny the Sox to increase the lead, but they themselves could not get the much needed run to boost their confidence.

Their perseverance paid off in top 5 when Suk Eun Jung’s singles to shallow center field saw Yang I Seul get the first run.

But after that it was stalemate till the final inning for New Zealand to win 5-1.