Early lead fuels South Africa 6-3 win over Singapore

World No. 12 South Africa claimed today their first win of the tournament, 6-3, over Singapore in the first game of the second competition day. The African squad was outhit 7-5, but took advantage of three Singapore errors in the first inning to make the difference in the game.

South Africa took the early lead in the top of the first with a three-run first inning, taking advantage of a sloppy defense by Singapore, which commited three errors in the frame. 

In the second inning, Dylan Ebrahim led off South Africa's attack with a single, moved to third with a pair of sacrifice bunts and then scored on a wild pitch. And one inning later, Nathan Pletschke drove in Kiddo Malematja with a single to left field to give the African team a 5-0 lead. They added one more one inning later on a sacrifice fly by Rian Hattingh.

Joshua Tan put Singapore on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth when he crushed a rise ball thrown by South Africa’s starter Lucas Lamola into the center field stands.

Singapore tried a comeback in the last inning, scored twice with an RBI triple by Ean Eu and a grounder by Matthew Lin and put two runners on with two outs, but Auric Chia, representing the potential tying run, struck out to end the game.

Kagiso Aphane, who replaced Lucas Lamola in the circle in the fourth inning, earned the win for South Africa. He tossed 3.2 innings while allowing four hits and two runs.

South Africa evened their record at 1-1 in Group A, while Singapore lost their second consecutive game.