The Philippine Blu Girls faltered against Chinese Taipei, 10-0, and settled for fourth place on Wednesday in the 2019 Asia Cup Women’s Softball Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The Philippines, however, accomplished its goal of gaining a spot to the WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania 2019 Qualifying Event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to be held in Shanghai, China from Sept. 24 to 29.
Despite failing to book a return trip to the championship round, Amateur Softball Association of the Philippines president Jean Henri Lhuillier is proud of what the team has accomplished in the Asia Cup.
“I am still happy with the result of our performance as we reached the primary objective of qualifying in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Asia/Oceania later this year, and we still have some time to work on our improvement areas to do better in that event,” said Lhuillier.
The Filipina softballers are currently ranked 13th in the world and the Chinese Taipei team, which claimed the bronze medal here, is ranked 6th.
World No. 2 Japan, meanwhile, outplayed No. 8 China, 9-2, to capture its fifth straight Asian championship and seventh overall title.
Finishing at fifth place in this 10-nation tournament was Korea followed by Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and India.