Aug 16, 2022 3 min read

Before Monday night’s Pony League World Series game against Johnstown, New Taipei City had its team name written on the scorecards handed out in the Lew Hays Pony Field press box as, well, New Taipei City.

New Taipei City lost to Johnstown, 4-2, breaking a 17-game World Series winning streak for the Asia-Pacific Zone and had to play Tuesday morning as a result.

Before Tuesday morning’s game against Bay County, Mich., similar lineups were given out.

But this time, the team name read “Chinese Taipei,” a name much more familiar with people who follow the annual August event.

Chinese Taipei has been to the Pony League World Series what Alabama has been to college football. Taipei has won 10 series championships overall and won four between 2015 and 2019, before the pandemic prevented the team from travelling abroad for two years. Whether or not the scorecard name change made a difference or not, Taipei played up to its reputation and cruised to an 12-0 five-inning win over Bay County.

It was a different Taipei team than the one that showed up Monday night.

“They adjust,” Bay County manager Craig Revette said. “They didn’t hit the ball particularly well against Johnstown. They went out and made a bunch of adjustments for us. They knew where to pitch our guys, and their final adjustments before they played us were just slap the ball all over the place. They did that, and they did it well.”

Taipei made a big statement early with four runs in the first inning.

It started when Hong Wei-Zhe led off with a double. After Lin Xin-Hong sacrificed him over to third, No. 3 hitter Lee Cheng-Yen drove Zhe in with a single to make it 1-0.

Yen came home to score on an error, and Taipei added a third run when Gao Chiu Sheng Hung singled home Shih Cheng-Yu.

The fourth run came in when Cheng-You scored on an error.

For Revette, the four-run first inning was a killer.

“That started the whole thing,” he said. (If the) ball bounces a different way a few times, and we maybe give up one and we have a lot of different momentum going into the next inning. But, it is what it is, and that happens sometimes.”

Taipei added on in the fifth on Cheng-Yen’s second RBI single. Taipei then scored two more on a double by Yang Wen-Wei, putting the game to bed.

The 10th run came in on a two-out double by Chen-Yu that scored Zhe, and the 11th came in in the top of the fourth on a solo home run by Wen-Wei to make it 11-0.

Taipei added one more in the fifth.

Bay County’s tournament ends after four games. It lost the tournament opener against Hagerstown Friday, then won Sunday against Guaynabo, P.R., and got revenge over Hagerstown Monday before its tournament ended.

Revette is proud of his team’s effort, and attitude.

“They play for each other, and they did everything that they did because of that,” he said. They didn’t give up. They never gave up. They just battled, battled, battled with each other.”