Tokaidai Sagami of Kanagawa Prefecture edged Chiben Wakayama 4-2 on the tenacious pitching of Rikiya Chikugawa to win the high school baseball national invitational tournament championship Tuesday. The victory gave Tokaidai Sagami its first championship in the spring invitational at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture and made it the 21st school in the history of high school baseball in Japan to win titles in both the spring and summer tournaments.
Tokaidai Sagami won the summer national championship crown in 1970 and previously was a runnerup in the spring sembatsu meet in 1975 and 1992.
"I'm so moved. We came here to win the championship, but it feels strange to finally be standing here," Tokaidai Sagami coach Keiji Monma said. "In a word, the difference was Chikugawa."
The Kanagawa ace, pitching for the third straight day, was not his sharpest as he surrendered 11 hits during the game. He pitched tenaciously, however, allowing only two runs to score while stranding 10 runners on base.
Given a two-run lead in the ninth, Chikugawa allowed a pair of runners to reach base with two-out singles, but then got Chiben Wakayama slugger Shinichi Takeuchi to chase a bad pitch low and away for a strikeout to end the game.
In the previous frame, Sagami's Sho Narahara drove in the go-ahead run with a one-out single up the alley in left and then came around to score an insurance run on a throwing error to first by Chiben shortstop Takeshi Ozeki.
Chiben Wakayama southpaw Takuya Shirono, pitching on two days' rest, allowed only six hits and three walks, but could not get the run support to give the Wakayama school its first spring tourney championship since 1994.