Generations of Tohoku residents broke out in cheers and tears as the six prefectures of the northeastern region became “one” on Aug. 22.

Sendai Ikuei Gakuen High School united the area by becoming the first Tohoku team to win the National High School Baseball Championship at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture.

With two outs at the top of the ninth inning, Toya Sasaki, 25, could no longer hold in his tears.

The scoreboard at Koshien Stadium showed his alma mater, Sendai Ikuei, up 8-1 over Shimonoseki International High School of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

“This is a historic moment that everybody in Tohoku has been waiting for,” Sasaki said when a groundout ended the game.

Sasaki was the captain of the 2015 Sendai Ikuei baseball team that reached the summer tournament’s final but came up short.

Now living in Tokyo, Sasaki watched the Aug. 22 final from the “Alps stands” cheering section set up between the infield and outfield seats on the first-base side of Koshien Stadium.

His former teammates were with him, including Sena Sato, 25, the pitching ace of the 2015 team who later played for the Orix Buffaloes.

“I am so happy that I can’t describe it in words,” Sato said. “I’m feeling something that I never felt before.”

Sato admitted that he had earlier thought he would have to wait longer to see a Tohoku team win the championship.

But he knew he was wrong when he saw the team “look very confident.”

“They have practiced enough to overcome the pressure. They were meant to be No. 1 in Japan,” Sato said.

JOY CROSSES GENERATIONS

Daisuke Yoshikawa, 44, an ace pitcher for the 1996 Sendai Ikuei team that played at the national tournament, drove from Saitama Prefecture to Koshien Stadium with his two sons.

The 10-hour trip paid off.

“I still cannot believe I just saw them win the championship,” Yoshikawa said in tears.

“My teammates and I were serious about winning the championship, but we couldn’t do it,” he said.

His oldest son, Sosuke, 10, was inspired.

“I, too, want to go to Sendai Ikuei and play for the national champion,” he said.

Former rivals on the field also rejoiced.

Shigetoshi Murakami, 51, who runs a sushi restaurant in Sendai’s Aoba Ward, heard his cellphone ringing as the game entered the ninth inning.

Murakami played second base on the 1989 Sendai Ikuei team that advanced to the final and lost.

The caller was Hitoshi Tomizawa, a shortstop of Tokyo’s Teikyo Senior High School team, which beat Murakami’s team to win the championship.

The two became friends after Tomizawa was transferred to Sendai and visited Murakami’s restaurant.

“At last,” Tomizawa said to Murakami over the phone.

The game was not over yet, but Murakami told his former rival: “Thank you. Now I can celebrate, can’t I?”

ASPIRATION TRANSCENDS RIVALRY

The annual summer high school baseball tournament, simply known as “Koshien” or “Koko-yakyu,” has been a national pastime in Japan since it was first held in 1915.

Typically, schools that win prefectural championships play at the national tournament, representing all 47 prefectures.

But no team from the six prefectures of the Tohoku region had ever taken home the national title.

Tohoku teams, hampered by long snowy winters, had been looked down on and treated as underdogs.

The inter-Tohoku rivalries have been fierce at times. But the teams all shared the same aspiration of finally bringing the championship flag across the “Shirakawa-no-seki,” the ancient “border entry” point to the Tohoku region.

At the former site of Shirakawa-no-seki, located in Shirakawa, Fukushima Prefecture, about 80 residents gathered to watch the game live on an 80-inch TV screen.

The Shirakawa city government decided to host the “public viewing” event at the site for the first time in anticipation of witnessing a history-making moment.

Many attendees, with noisemakers in Sendai Ikuei’s team colors of yellow and blue, had witnessed the close, heartbreaking losses of Tohoku teams in the national tournament.

Sendai Ikuei first baseman Ikuya Iwasaki made sure there was no doubt about the outcome of the game when he smashed a grand slam in the seventh inning.

That homer brought the fans at Shirakawa out of their chairs, including Yoshifumi Midorikawa, a 71-year-old local resident, and his 11-year-old grandson.

Midorikawa said he vividly remembers when Iwaki High School of Fukushima Prefecture lost in the 1971 final.

Since then, a Tohoku team winning the national title has been his own dream.

“I am full of emotion right now,” he said. “I feel so proud as a Tohoku person.”

Since 1997, Shirakawajinja shrine, located next to the historic site, has made a “pass” that allows the championship flag to enter Tohoku and given it the region’s teams that play in the national tournament every spring and summer.

This summer, Seiko Gakuin High School of Fukushima Prefecture lost to Sendai Ikuei in an all-Tohoku semifinal game.

But the Fukushima team’s defeat did not break the spirit of Shigekazu Nishida, the chief priest of the shrine.

“Tohoku’s long-standing wish is fulfilled, and from a fellow Tohoku person, I just want to thank the Sendai Ikuei team,” Nishida, 74, said after the final.

In Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, where the Sendai Ikuei team’s home ground is located, about 270 people watched the game live at the city’s cultural center.

A man in his 70s, who works at a nearby construction company, skipped work to see the special moment.

He was at Koshien Stadium when Misawa High School of Aomori Prefecture lost in the rematch after an epic 18-inning tie game final in the summer of 1969.

After the final out on Aug. 22, he smiled and started shaking hands with people around him.

“This experience does not come by too often,” the man said. “I am as happy as can be that I could see this in my lifetime.”

Wataru Sue, 39, manager of the Sendai Ikuei team, once said, “People in Tohoku feel strongly about ‘Tohoku as one.’”

Sue, who is originally from Saitama Prefecture and has been based in Tohoku since he attended Sendai Ikuei in high school, said, “I feel the same way, too.”

He said competitive teams in Tohoku have tried to catch up with and get past each other.

One of those teams was Seiko Gakuin.

Hayato Akahori, captain of the Seiko Gakuin team, walked up to Yuto Sato, captain of Sendai Ikuei, after the semifinal game.

“We are representing the same Tohoku,” Akahori told Sato. “Make sure you win it all.”