Kanagawa Prefecture's Keio High School ended a 107-year drought by winning the prestigious national summer high school baseball championship and dethroning last year's champs Sendai Ikuei High School 8-2 in Wednesday's final.
Sendai Ikuei, from Miyagi Prefecture, last year became the first school from the Tohoku region to win one of the two big annual tournaments held at Hyogo Prefecture's historic Koshien Stadium.
"We were able to play our style of ball against the strongest opposition. The players grew up in excellent fashion," said Keio manager Takahiko Moribayashi.
Moribayashi is a staunch advocate of a more liberal high school baseball culture. A visible symbol of that is players wearing their hair normal length, instead of closely cropped in the fashion that has long been a high school ball hallmark.
"I have strived to overturn what was considered to be the norms, and was able to create a kind of baseball I wanted to have." Moribayashi said. "Perhaps this was a victory that will lead to a new look for high school baseball."
Playing in the school's third summer final and its first in 103 years, Keio's title was its first since the tournament's second edition in 1916.
Keio opened the game with a leadoff home run from Minato Maruta. Leading 3-2 in the fifth, Keio scored five runs with two outs to take a commanding lead that they wouldn't relinquish.