Koshien: Komadai Wins Two Summers in a Row

Tomakomai played really well as a team throughout the tourney, but Osaka Toin's monsters, Hirata and Tsujiuchi, look really promising as prospects.

I wonder if anything could be done about the scheduling of the tournament to protect young shoulders. The back to back to back games are really dangerous on pitchers and doesn't get the best performance out of them either. But probably nothing will be done because Hanshin already has a long enough "road trip from he11" and doesn't want a longer trip Schools and supporters also don't want to have to shell out more money to stay in Hyogo for a longer schedule. But if there were three, or even two, days between quarters and semis, and semis and the finals, that would do a lot to improve performance and safety (while occasionally someone like Matsuzaka thrives, I reckon more players get affected adversely).

This year, the two teams that won the quarters that were played on the 18th, both lost the semis played on the 19th (not sure if there's any trend about this though).

Komadai have just been revealed to have a bullying scandal. Whether this will affect the result has not been announced, but one school (the name of which escapes me) was thrown out of the tournament before it started for similar practices.

Hmm. Kochi's Meitoku Gijuku pulled out due to bullying and smoking. [Full Story - Asahi Herald - in English]

Komadai's coach (?), who is also a teacher at the school, physically punished some third year team members. He slapped them forcefully enough on the face that one of their jaws got dislocated. It will be interesting to see how physical abuse by a coach will be looked at by the High School Baseball Federation, as opposed to hazing of kohais by sempais. [Full Story - Nikkan Sports - in Japanese]