Photo/Illutration Members of the Keio Senior High School baseball team celebrate their victory at the National High School Baseball Championship on Aug. 23 at Hanshin Koshien Stadium. (Takuya Tanabe)

Keio may have had to wait for more than a century, but that made the triumph even sweeter on Aug. 23 in dominating Sendai Ikuei to win the National High School Baseball Championship.

Keio Senior High School, representing Kanagawa Prefecture, beat Sendai Ikuei Gakuen High School of Miyagi Prefecture 8-2 in the final of the tournament held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

The last time Keio won the championship was in 1916 when the team's previous incarnation clinched the title, only a year after the tournament was established.

This marked the longest championship drought for a school. The previous record was set by Sakushin Gakuin of Tochigi Prefecture, which won in 1962 and then waited more than a half-century before breaking through again in 2016.

It was also the first time for a Kanagawa school to win the championship since Tokai University Sagami Senior High School did so eight years ago. This is the eighth title for a Kanagawa school in the tournament's long history. 

Sendai Ikuei, which became the first team from the Tohoku region last year to win the Koshien tournament, missed out on becoming the seventh school in history to record back-to-back championships.

In the game, Keio took an early lead in the first inning with a lead-off home run into the right field stands by Minato Maruta and an RBI single off the bat of Sennosuke Watanabe.

In the second inning, Maruta padded Keio's lead with an RBI single.

Sendai Ikuei narrowed the margin to 3-2 in the third inning. But Keio exploded for five runs in the fifth, including an RBI double by Naotoki Fukui. Pinch-hitter Eiki Adachi and Hinata Yagi also each notched RBI singles.

Keio’s pitchers shut down Sendai Ikuei's bats the rest of the way.

Second-year left-hander Kamon Suzuki started the game and second-year ace Masaki Oyake took over from the fifth inning to snuff out any Sendai Ikuei hopes. 

Along with a champion not seen for more than a century, this year's tournament also saw a few changes.

To counter the heat and prevent injuries, the rosters for the tournament were expanded from 18 to 20 players.

A “cooling time” period of 10 minutes was observed after the fifth inning of games played under the broiling heat.

Since the severity of COVID-19 was downgraded to the same level as seasonal influenza, the guidelines for preventing the spread of infections, which were in place until last year, were abolished.

Loud cheering returned to the stadium and the cap on the number of brass bands was also lifted.

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