MEDAN (2015 FIBA Asia U16 Women's Championship) - Defending champions China's onslaught at the start of the second half helped them break away from an equally poised position, at the break, to beat fellow East Asian powerhouse Korea, 78-53, in a needle Level I contest on Monday.

Meanwhile, Japan - finalists of all the three editions of this event to date - coasted along for their second successive win beating India, 113-39, and Chinese Taipei survived a few scares before beating Thailand, 81-70.

China and Korea matched each other move for move and exchange for exchange for the entire first half, which ended with the former nudging ahead 33-30.

But the start of the second half saw China move in big. Lingge Zhang's twin free-throws opened the scoring for the period, Jiaqi Wang reeled in back-to-back three-pointers and Ru Zhang drove in the lane as China broke away from Korea.

Jiyu Moon's free-throw ended the barren period for Korea, but that proved minor respite as China finished the period with an overwhelming 25-5 advantage to take a firm grip on the game.

Zhang and Yu Luo, who both drew a blank in the first half, came up with an eight-point effort each in the third period powering China ahead. Zhang wound up her scoring with that performance and Luo added only two more in the final period.

Yueru Li had a game-high 25 points to lead China, 18 of them coming in the second half.

Sohee Lee, who led Korea in the first half with nine points, added only one more while heading her team's scoring.

Thailand ran Taipei roughshod for three quarters of the game maintaining a double-digit lead for a better part of the game, but the latter stepped up the gas in the final period and had the last laugh.

The SEABA team scored the first nine points of the game and kept a steady pace in pursuit of what would have been their first win over their fancied rivals in this event.

But Taipei unleashed a dozen unanswered points at the start of the fourth quarter that caught the Thais off guard. In all, Taipei outscored Thailand 25-6 in the final period.

Shin-Jie Shiau, who accounted for nine of Taipei's points in that final period blitz, finished with 14 points behind Si-Han Wen's team-high 26 points. Yu-Ti Chen had 11 points, six of them coming in the fourth quarter.

Thunchanok Lumdappang, who scored seven of Thailand's points at the opening of the game, finished with a game-high 30 points and collected another game-high 14 rebounds. But all those points and a dozen of those boards came in the first three quarters.

Rattiyakorn Udomskuk added 20 points, but 17 of them coming before the final period.

Japan played well within themselves with coach Tatsui Isshiki giving his bench a lot of time, yet proved more than a handful for India.

Allowing their rivals to remain close in the first quarter, Japan broke away at the start of the second racing to a double-digit lead in the opening moments.

Hotaru Kabashima was the only Japanese player not to take the court, but all the others who played put their names on the scoring list.

Itsuki Hashiguchi and Rina Kajiwara shared the scoring honors in Japanese rampage with 16 points each.

Rutuja Pawar ploughed a rather lonely furrow with a dozen points.

In Level II competition, a qualifying a qualifying level from where the top two teams have an opportunity to make the cut for next edition's Level 1, Malaysia bounced back from a opening day defeat to beat Uzbekistan, 72-53, and Hong Kong defeated Kazakhstan, 80-50, for their second successive win. It was the second defeat in as many games for both the Central Asian teams.

Finally, in the last game of the day, hosts Indonesia made it two out-of-two with a 52-46 win over Singapore.

FIBA