TIANJIN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Defending champions Jiangsu beat Beijing 6-1 here on Wednesday for their third straight win at the softball competition of the 13th Chinese National Games.
It was hotly contested early in the match between two previously unbeaten team as neither team could score in the first three innings. Jiangsu broke the deadlock in the fourth inning through a hit by batter Yuanhuaining before another hit by Zhang Hai helped Jiangsu improve it to 3-0.
"It was a pretty close match. I didn't think too much at the moment, I just swung at the pitch and it worked well for us," said Yuan.
Jiangsu scored three more points in the fifth inning to make it 6-0. Beijing pulled one point back in the sixth, but that's the furthest they could go.
"As we had expected, it was a tough match. Luckily, we broke the deadlock through two hits in the fourth inning and then we got control of the game," said Jiangsu coach Song Qiuyuan. "It's an important win for us, but we have two more tough matches to play in the round robin."
In Wednesday's other matches, Liaoning crushed Tianjin 10-0 while Sichuan lost to Shanghai 2-0.
Six teams are playing in the preliminary round robin with top four teams entering the page playoffs.
