East Asian foursome make up Semi-Final line-up

MEDAN (2015 FIBA Asia U16 Women's Championship) - Japan's 99-56 win over Korea on Thursday combined with defending champions China's 100-50 triumph against Thailand and Chinese Taipei's 92-48 victory over India completed a Level I order of rankings that repeated the exact manner in which these four had finished two years ago in Colombo.

In the Semi-Finals to be played on Saturday - also a repeat of the match-ups from the 2011 FIBA Asia U16 Women's Championship final four contests - China will take on Taipei and Japan will match wits with Korea.

India and Thailand, the other two teams in Level I competition will take on Hong Kong and hosts Indonesia respectively in an attempt to retain their position in the elite level two years from now.

India took almost five minutes to open their account, by when Taipei had reeled in 13 points, which took away the competitiveness in the game.

Meng Hsin-Chen, who scored six of those 13 points, topped the game for scoring with 19 points. Yu-Lin Kao, Si-Han Wen and Hsu-Ju Ho, the last mentioned who came on only in the second quarter, added a dozen points each.

Sushantika Chakravortty and Srishti Suren each had 10 gallant points in India's lost cause, the latter also pulling down a dozen rebounds off the defense glass in an overall game-high 16 collections.

Korea and Japan, were mutually wary and took the opportunity to size each other up, at least in the early parts of the game before the latter made their move.

Haruki Takahara and Mayuko Fujinaga each accounted for nine points apiece to put Japan on the up at the end of the first quarter. And Tatsushi Isshiki's girls never looked back.

Both Takahara and Fujinaga were rested for the entire second half.

Rui Mima who came on only in the second quarter went on to finish with a game-high 16 points for Japan.

Hyunji Park's 14 points with 16 rebounds was the highest for Korea.

China closed the first quarter with 10 unanswered points and then scored the first nine points of the second to effective seal the fate of the encounter.

Yueru Li, who had a dozen points in that breakaway by China finished with 26 points and 14 rebounds leading the team's victory march.

Rattiyakorn Udomsuk kept the Thai flag flying with 16 points.

In Level II, Hong Kong capped their unbeaten run in the qualifying level beating Uzbekistan, 88-33, and Singapore scored a few brownie points while defeating the more fancied fellow SEABA team Malaysia, 49-42.

And Kazakhstan rounded off the Preliminary Phase engagements beating hosts Indonesia 48-45, but the defeat had no bearing on the hosts progress to the Level I play-off on Saturday.

FIBA