I took a break from getting up early to watch the games for the weekend. Still the homepage for the tournament provides a service for lazy guys like me with a highlight section in which you can watch each inning of every game. So I didn’t watch the live coverage for the following games, still I wanted to keep everybody posted about was what happening at Koushien over the past few days. Unfortunately the team I chose to be my favourites, Kisarazu Sougou, lost their 2nd round game and are out of the tournament. All that was left for them to do was to collect a handful of the sacred dirt of Koushien as a memory. Now I have to look for another team to root for.
Day 10:
Two shoutout victories, this must have been a nice day at Koushien. Unfortunately all the games were way too early for me, so I will have to watch the recaps on the tournament’s website. But I am happy that Aomori Yamada came through to the next round. I think I know someone who will be happy right now. Also I have seen a Japanese TV series in which the main characters come from the Aomori prefecture and they always have conversations in their home dialect. This always sounds so funny that it makes me like Aomori even more. Funny how you choose teams you root for, right?
Honjyo Daiichi (North Saitama) vs Aomori Yamada (Aomori) 0-4
Keio Koukou (North Kanagawa) vs Takaoka Shogyo (Toyama) 5-0
Seiho Koukou (Nagasaki) vs Toho Koukou (West Aichi) 4-5
Day 9:
Urasoe Shogyo 浦添商 (Okinawa) vs Chiba Keizaidai Fuzoku 千葉経大付 (West Chiba) 12-9
What was that?! When I tuned in the score was already 9-2 UraSho and it was only the 3rd inning. They started an onslaught on Chiba’s ace Saitou who was placed at 1st base after that inning scoring five runs in the 1st, two runs in the 2nd and three runs in the 3rd. His replacement held UraSho scoreless for the next few innings. Then Chiba came back into the game, slowly at first getting back one run in the 5th. But in the 7th they started their own rally getting closer and closer until they were only trailing by one run. UraSho responded immediately putting another three runs on the board and they were showing some nice defense as well with two nice plays in the 8th inning. In the 9th Chiba went down and the last out was a checked swing strikeout.
Will yet another school from Okinawa storm into the final of a Koushien tournament? After all this year’s spring tournament winner was from Okinawa as well and they were eliminated by UraSho in the preliminary tournament.
Kagoshima Jitsugyo (Kagoshima) vs Miyazaki Shogyo (Miyazaki) 4-1
Chiben Gakuen (Nara) vs Hotoku Gakuen (East Hogyo) 5-4
Kanto Daiichi (East Tokyo) vs Naruto Kogyo (Tokushima) 5-2
Day 8:
Fukuchiyama Seibi 福知山成美 (Kyoto) vs Tokoha Kikugawa 常葉菊川 (Shizuoka) 1-2
A Japanese person I met via the mixi community told me about the school from her prefecture Shizuoka winning their first round game on Saturday so I decided to take a look at what happened there. Seems to have been a very close game when you read the scoreline. The winning runs came on errors of the defense and not on hits by the offense. Seibi took the lead in the 7th, but Tokoha Kikugawa responded in the 8th. At first it was a classic set up: Lead off hitter draws and walk and gets bunted to 2nd. Then the next batter draws another walk and on the last pitch the lead runner steals 3rd. Runners at the corners. And then things get crazy. The runner on 1st tries to steal 2nd, the throw by the catcher gets through to center field, the runner on 3rd scores, the runner from 2nd gets to third. Then the whole defense goes to sleep and the runner on 3rd also scores. So he basically steals his way from 1st to home. Unbelievable. (Highlights)
Another thing that struck me was that Tokoha Kikugawa were wearing uniforms which really looked like a copy of the Yankees pinstripes. They even fit the initials “T” and “H” on it like the “NY” on the Yankees uniforms. Really interesting. It was something new to me from all the plain white jerseys all the other teams were wearing in their games.
Saga Shogyo (Saga) vs Kurashiki Shogyo (Okayama) 0-2
Moriokadai Fuzoku (Iwate) vs Komadai Iwamizawa (North Hokkaido) 3-8
Chiben Wakayama (Wakayama) vs Kisarazu Sougou (East Chiba) 5-2
Great inning-by-Inning reports with additional info, player names, etc. can be found at http://goroshigeno.blogspot.com/
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