The nightshifts of the past week finally caught up with me and sent me to bed early last night so I wasn’t able to watch a complete game at all. I sticked around long enough to catch a glimpse of the PL Gakuen game though and I was very impressed by the turnout at the stadium. The game started at 8:30 am local time at Osaka and the place was packed. PL Gakuen is the Osaka prefecture representative, of course, but I didn’t expect so many people to show up at such an early time. If this was taking place here people would still be in bed at such a time.
PL Gakuen ＰＬ学園 (Osaka) – Seikou Gakuin 聖光学院 (Fukushima) 6-3
PL Gakuen was in control for this one striking early. The had to let Seikou come close in the 6th though as their pitcher didn’t seem to have his best day. But then PL pulled awayin the bottom half of the inning and brought the game home. So even without their top pitcher Nakano, who I’ve mentioned quite a few times by now, they advance to the next round where they will face red hot Gifu Shougyou who clobbered Yamanashi 14-6 yesterday.
Meiou 明桜 (Akita) – Nihon Koukuu Ishikawa 日本航空石川 (Ishikawa) 2-3
Nihon Bunri 日本文理 (Niigata) – Sangawa 寒川 (Kagawa) 4-3
Risshoudai Shounan 立正大淞南 (Shimane) – Karyou 華陵 (Yamaguchi) 1-0
I only saw the highlights on the tournament’s homepage, but, boy oh boy, this must have been a thriller which kept you on the edge of your seat for the whole time. A nailbiting pitcher’s duel with great defensive plays in the oufield by Risshoudai Shounan, one very important in left field coming in the top of the ninth with 1 outs and a runner on 2nd. That same left fielder named Goto stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out and hammered a sayonara solo shot to left field. What a finish.
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