Blu Girls trip Koreans, enter page system finals

Ace Royeve Palma came up with a masterful performance on the mound on Wednesday and keyed a 5-2 win by the Philippines over South Korea that gave the Junior Blu Girls the last slot in the page system finals of the Asian Softball 19-Under Women championship at Clark International Sports Complex in Pampanga.

Palma had four strikeouts in retiring 15 batters and yielded just three hits as the Philippines improved to 4-2.

Unbeaten four-time champion Japan racked up its sixth straight win with a 16-0 thrashing of Thailand; defending champion Chinese Taipei overpowered India, 16-0; and Korea bounced back with a 15-3 rout of Malaysia in the afternoon.

Japan thus topped the eight-team series with a 6-0 slate, Chinese Taipei has a 5-1 card and China tied the Philippines to complete the page system finals.

The page system finals will be held on Friday at 1 p.m. with Japan facing Taiwan and China taking on the Blu Girls.

The winner in the Japan-Chinese Taipei match will bag the first title game slot.