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LESS than 24 hours after landing in Taiwan, Guam’s Little League Majors Division All-Stars took it to the field at Wan-Shou Stadium to begin their quest of making it to the Little League World Series.

The first day of competition in the 2012 Asia-Pacific Little League Regional Tournament began yesterday with Team Guam taking on Chinese-Taipei. Despite putting out a good showing, Guam wasn’t able to overcome Chinese-Taipei and suffered a 5-2 loss.

“Despite what the scoreboard reflected, our boys did good and in many ways showed the other teams what we are capable of doing,” Team Guam manager Robert Cruz said. “It isn’t too often where teams can stay this close in a game against a powerful team like Chinese-Taipei. We hit the ball well and we pitched against them well.”

After Cheng Feng Lee struck out the Guam side in the top of the first inning, Chinese-Taipei put themselves at the plate for their first chance on offense. With two runners on base, Chinese-Taipei managed to score two runs courtesy of Guam errors. Later in the inning, Guam’s Isaiah Nauta prevented another run from scoring after making a diving catchat second base. Guam’s starting pitcher was able to get straight strikeouts to end the inning.

Team Guam’s first opportunity to score came in the second inning when Kenji McCarthy macked a shot to the left-centerfield fence for a double. However, Lee once again proved his strength from the mound and recorded his fifth and sixth strikeout to end the inning. Chinese-Taipei managed to up their lead to 3-0 in the bottom half of the inning.

Later in the fourth, Reed Seman led the inning off with a single to put a Guam runner on base. Two batters later, McCarthy tallied another base hit. However, Seman was thrown out at third base for the second out. Chinese-Taipei ended the inning leaving a Guam runner stranded for the second time.

Guam’s deficit grew to 4-0 after Chinese-Taipei scored on a fielder’s choice in the bottom half of the inning. Trailing 5-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, Guam had one last chance to mount a comeback and keep the game going. Xavier Naputi got things started and hit a line drive double to centerfield to put a runner on base. Moments later, Seman sent a hit to left field that drove in Naputi to end the Guam dry spell. A Chinese-Taipei wild pitch allowed Seman to score and make it a 5-2 game with two outs. Team Guam ran out of chances as Chinese-Taipei was able to get the final out of the game to give them the victory.

“Playing Chinese-Taipei is probably the best thing that could’ve happened to our team. We’ll come back and play just as tough, if not tougher for the rest of the tourney,” Cruz said.

Team Guam is off from play today and will resume action tomorrow when they take on Hong Kong at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. Guam time).