Okinawa Shogaku defeated Saitama's Seibo Gakuen in a 9-0 rout Friday to win its second overall title at the National High School Invitational Tournament. Pitching for the third day in a row, Nao Higashihama held batters to six hits with three walks and six strikeouts over the distance at Koshien Stadium as the Okinawa school won its first spring title since 1999. It was the first time that a pitcher threw a complete-game shutout since Daisuke Matsuzaka, currently of the Boston Red Sox, did so for Yokohama on April 8, 1998. "We weren't concerned with victory until the game ended. I told the players to maintain their focus," said Okinawa Shogaku manager Koya Higa, who was the 1999 winning team's ace pitcher. "We had the best performance in our fifth game here at Koshien. I trusted that the players would give their all and that's exactly what they did." Okinawa Shogaku raced out to a 6-0 lead in the first three innings, scoring four times on six hits in the third and leadoff batter Hijiri Iko hit an inside-the-park three-run homer to extend the lead in the fifth en route to a 15-hit attack.
