Spring national invitational tournament champion Joso Gakuin pounded out 20 hits to crush Osaka's Uenomiya Taishi 15-4 in the opener of the national high school baseball championship on Wednesday.
Following the opening ceremony held before 38,000 fans at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture, Joso drove home five runs on four two-out hits in the third inning to take a 6-0 lead as the Ibaraki school opened its campaign for a spring-summer double.
Third baseman Kazuya Kobayashi, one of five Joso players who had three or more hits, went 5-for-6 with a solo homer in the fifth and outfielder Daisuke Shutto went 4-for-4 with four RBIs.
In the second game, starter Kosei Miyazaki and Hideyuki Iwasaki combined for a six-hit shutout as first-timer Hanasaki Tokuharu of Saitama Prefecture blanked Ube Shogyo of Yamaguchi 12-0. Miyazaki, who scattered five hits over seven innings, also contributed offensively as he had three of Hanasaki's 17 hits.
In Wednesday's other first-round game, cleanup hitter Masamitsu Harashima hit a three-run homer and drove in five runs as Tokyo's Nichidai Daisan downed Shonan of Kagoshima 11-7 in a 33-hit slugfest. The 83rd annual championship features 49 prefectural meet winners and runs through Aug. 21.