Yu Otsuka doubled home a pair of runs in the ninth inning Sunday and lifted Yokohama into the semifinals of the high school baseball national championship tourney with a 4-2 victory over Miyazaki's Nichinan Gakuen.
Otsuka collected his first hit of the tourney off Nichinan Gakuen ace Hayato Terahara, who issued three walks in the top of the ninth to load the bases at Koshien Stadium before giving up the decisive blow. Terahara, whose fastball was clocked at 154 kph last Thursday, went the distance on 170 pitches for Nichinan Gakuen, but had little left at the end in the duel with Yokohama ace Futoshi Hatakeyama. Yokohama, which won the championship in 1998, will face Tokyo's Nichidai Daisan in the 1:30 p.m. semifinal scheduled for Monday.
Earlier, Kazuya Uchida homered for second straight game and Shunsuke Ishii rapped out a bases-loaded double as Nichidai Daisan pounded out 17 hits and romped 9-2 over Meiho of Oita Prefecture. Nichidai Daisan pitchers Hideki Chiba and Kazuki Kondo combined to notch 14 strikeouts, holding Meiho to two runs on four hits, as the affiliate school of Nihon University advances to the semifinals of the summer classic for the first time.
In the second game, Hiroyuki Komori put Omi ahead 5-3 with a two-run single in the fifth inning and Akihiro Sasajima sparked a three-run eighth with an RBI single to lift the Shiga school 8-6 over Aomori's Kosei Gakuin. The victory put the school from Shiga Prefecture into the semifinals of the tournament for the first time in 16 years. Omi will face Matsuyama Shogyo of Ehime Prefecture, who beat Kyoto's Heian 4-3, in Monday's first semifinal at 11 a.m.