TWBL: From newcomers to champions
The second season of Taiwanese TWBL knows its champions. This year the title goes to Nantou who, after a dominating performance in the regular season, carried on their form and won the championship after beating High Match 7:0.
First two teams from both divisions had a chance to play in semifinals this year. It was a nice mix of veterans (High Match and Anytime Fitness) and new teams (Nantou and Hong Liang) who made it through. While playing in the inaugural season, Anytime Fitness got into the semifinals for the first time this year when they occupied bottom places of the table in 2020/2021 season. Unfortunately, they lost 3:12 to High Match giving them the final fourth place. Nantou continued their winning streak and beat Hong Liang 10:4, advancing to the finals.
In the final game Nantou relied on Qi-Rong Chen who threw 3.1 IP. She was then substituted for Pei-Jun Lin who wrapped up the game. The pitching duo only allowed 2 hits to their opponent and thanks to offensive dominance, the game finished in the fifth inning 7:0 to Nantou.
Performance of Nantou players showed during the individual awards ceremony, when Li-Qiu Zhang took Coach of the Year award, while Wen-Li Ma won the league’s MVP. The third Nantou player to be awarded was pitcher Qian-Yu Hong who finished the regular season with 1.56 ERA. Award for the offensive player went to Pei-Ching Li from High Match, who had .750 BA, while her teammate Xin-Yi Gao took RBI Leader award with 14 RBI. The last award went to Yi-Jin Zhong from Sunflower who finished the regular season with 13 SO.
A week before finals TWBL also saw remaining 8 teams play a mini tournament of placement games. Sunday, who also played in the first season of TWBL finished 5th in the end, while Sunflower with awarded Yi-Jin Zhong finished 7th. Kaohsiung Kapok, the oldest women’s baseball team in Taiwan, also played in TWBL for the first time this season. Unfortunately their performance got them 12th place.
8.1.2022 | ||
Fearless | 13:3 | Norna |
NTSU | 12:8 | Kapok |
Sunday | 13:12 | Sunflower |
Vanguard | 14:6 | Lightning |
9.1.2022 | ||
Norna | 9:6 | Kapok |
Fearless | 18:5 | NTSU |
Sunflower | 12:0 | Lightning |
Sunday | 20:1 | Vanguard |
Final standings of 2021/2022 TWBL season:
Rank | Team |
1. | Nantou County |
2. | High Match |
3. | Hong Liang |
4. | Anytime Fitness |
5. | Sunday |
6. | Taipei Vanguard |
7. | Taichung Sunflower |
8. | Tainan Lightning |
9. | Fearless |
10. | NTSU |
11. | Norna |
12. | Kaohsiung Kapok |