The head of Fukuoka Kodai Joto high school replaced the head of the school's baseball club Saturday in the wake of a cheating scandal that surfaced the previous day at the 74th national high school invitational tournament.
Hiroyuki Shojizono, apologizing to the Japan High School Baseball Federation, said that Akihiko Komoda would act as head of the school's baseball club for the remainder of the tournament. A new club director would be named around mid-April.
An official of the school's team had been accused of stealing signs from Utsunomiya Kogyo and relaying the information to the team's bench in a 6-5 win over the Tochigi prefectural school Friday. Shojizono offered to have his school disqualified from the 32-team spring classic, but tournament officials rejected the offer and the Fukuoka prefectural school will face Meitoku Gijuku of Kochi Prefecture on the eighth day of competition next week at Koshien Stadium.