NISHINOMIYA, Japan - Chiben Wakayama grabbed Japan's prestigious summer national high school baseball championship for the fourth time with a 4-3 victory over Takasaki University of Health and Welfare High School on Saturday.
Chiben, representing Wakayama Prefecture in western Japan, opened the scoring with two runs in the second inning at the iconic Koshien Stadium near Osaka.
Takasaki of Gunma Prefecture in eastern Japan, which captured the spring Koshien title in 2024, took a 3-2 lead in the top of the eighth on a two-run homer.
However, Chiben Wakayama responded immediately in the bottom of the inning, tying the game before scoring the go-ahead run to reclaim the lead.
In the lead-up to the final, the 2021 champion Chiben defeated Yokohama High School and ace Shoki Oda, one of the tournament's top pitchers who has clocked a Koshien-record 156 kilometers per hour, in a semifinal on Thursday.
A total of 3,363 teams competed in regional qualifying tournaments for the summer event this year, with 49 advancing to the national championship at Koshien, one of Japan's most popular amateur sporting events.
As part of efforts to broaden the pool of officials and promote diversity, five female umpires made their Koshien debuts, ending the tournament's long-standing practice of using only male officials.
Video review has also been introduced to improve the accuracy of umpires' calls.
To address increasingly severe summer heat, the tournament has in recent years adopted a two-session schedule, with games played in the morning and evening to avoid the hottest part of the day.
