Yoshinori Itoya and Kosuke Sasaki drove home four runs apiece Sunday as Komadai Tomakomai outslugged Ehime's Saibi on its way to becoming the first Hokkaido school to win the National High School Championship with a 13-10 victory.
Players from Hokkaido's Komadai Tomakomai gather at the mound to celebrate after capturing their first National High School Championship by defeating Saibi of Ehime Prefecture 13-10 on Sunday at Koshien Stadium.
Itoya's two-run homer and an RBI single by Dai Igarashi tied the game at 9-9 in the sixth inning before Komadai Tomakomai pulled away in the seventh with three consecutive RBI hits by Sasaki, Yu Kuwajima and Yasuhito Suzuki in a 39-hit slugfest at Koshien Stadium.
Suzuki took the mound in the second inning in relief of starter Seiji Iwata and worked 7 1/3 innings despite giving up 16 hits to Saibi, which squandered leads of 5-1 and 9-6 and failed to add a national championship title to its crown at the national invitational tournament this spring.