Yugakukan southpaw Tatsuya Kojima fanned 14 and his teammates overcame an early three-run deficit Saturday as the Ishikawa school defeated Shizuoka's Kosei 8-4 in the 84th high school baseball national championship tournament.
The third-round victory at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture lifted the tournament newcomer into the quarterfinals in only the second year since Yugakukan was first opened.
Sixteen-year-old Kojima, going the distance on 153 pitches, brought his strikeout total for two games in the summer tourney to 29.
In the second game, Shinji Nakahigashi went 3-for-4 with a three-run homer and four RBIs to power Hiroshima's Koryo into the quarterfinals with a 7-2 triumph over Chukyo of Gifu Prefecture.
In the third game, Kagawa's Jinsei Gakuen broke open a tie game with two runs in the seventh inning and then rolled on to a 12-5 win over Saku Chosei of Nagano Prefecture.
In the final game, Teikyo pounded out 20 hits, including three homers, and romped 17-7 over Fukui to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 1995 when the Tokyo school went all the way to win the title.