INTERCONTINENTAL STADIUM. Korea shut the case Italy in the eighth, with six runs that gave the last game of First Round of the XXVI 18U Baseball World Cup a 17-4 anticipated end, to keep alive the chances to make the Semi-Finals Group.
The teams had put on the field a snip-snap first inning, as the Koreans scored three times out of three hits and two errors of the Italian defense and the Europeans tied the game with a sac fly by Celli and a 2-RBI double by Valera.
But it did not last much: the Easterns scored five runs in the second and, as the azzurri defense kept committing errors (7 at the end of the game), lefhander Hwang Young Kuk gave his team 5 quality inning, allowing just one more run, 2 hits and delivering 8 strikeouts.
Korea got hits from nine players and RBIs from eight.
Team Italy ends last in the Group B and will face tomorrow the other European team, Czech Republic, in the eleventh-twelfth position game, while Korea must wait for the final score of the evening games to know what kind of continuation its tournament will have.