Chinese Taipei cruise into Semi finals pipping Cambodia 103-96

Pek Mith shoot for the basket in Cambodia win over Vietnam. Cambodia is now set to battle for 5th place.

Cambodia's Hope of making it to the Semi finals of the 4th China-Asean Invitational Tournament suffered a blow as the team lost 96-103 to Chinese Taipei on Saturday. With both sides need victory in the last group tie haven both won two matches and lost one in previous group games. It was Chinese taipei who started the better side. Taipei began the game brightly, breaking quickly and keeping Cambodia on the back foot for the first Quarter finishing 28-21.

Cambodia came back in the Second quarter with a good display from the trio of Pek Mith, Boroth Thach, and Sop Oeun combining well with Phal Sophors, Chom Chanborey and Meas Rithyravuth to win the Second quarter 33-21 to go into the half time break 62-42.

Coming back from half time, Cambodia continued to pull the strings and took a 15 point lead with 3 minutes left on the clock in the third Quarter third quarter. With Cambodia relying so much on their foreign Trio, Chinese Taipei came back from behind towards the end of the third quarter to take a three point lead into the fourth quarter with scores at 76 - 73 in favour of Taipei.

The fourth quarter saw both teams neck to neck and with 4 minutes left they were 81 points all square. As the fourth quarter wore on, It seems the game was heading for overtime but Cambodia could not find the inspiration needed to push on suddenly lost the purpose, guile, endeavor and enterprise that saw them record wins over Macao and Vietnam in earlier rounds and were. Chinese Taipei kept wriggling their way past the Cambodian players making points after points especially from distance to extend their lead. A late rally from the Cambodians could only help to reduce Taipei's lead to Seven points as it ended 103-96 in favour of Chinese Taipei.

Cambodia will now settle for third place in the group and will be looking to fight for 5th or 6th place against the 4th Place finisher in Group A on Sunday 31st October.

"Our team tried, the Foreign players helped and gave their best but lost to a much stronger Side" Says Leader of Delegation Top Panha "We have surely learn't a big lesson from this tournament and hopefully when we get back to Phnom Penh, we can prepare better fro the SEA games" he remarked.

Secretary General of Cambodia Basketball Federation, Mr Mak Champhirun lauded the performance of the team and noted that the foreign players need to play more with the local players to improve the team. "Our Team is improving despite the lose, we need to play more together, the foreign players are beginning to understand each other but we are not yet 100% playing together as a team" he stated. "The local players need to be integrated more and we can do better" he noted. "We lost today because the Chinese Taipei were very good in shooting from far, this we have to work well on our defending before we got to the SEA games" he enthused.

Cambodia will now take on Hongkong who finished 4th in Group A behind Malaysia, China Pingguo and Singapore to battle for the 5th and 6th place on Sunday 31st October.

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