March 21, 2012, 9 a.m.

The early spring weather was unpredictable, and today a fine drizzle was falling over Hyogo, but it did nothing to dampen the lively atmosphere at Hanshin Koshien Stadium.

Approximately 20,000 spectators attended the opening ceremony of the 84th Senbatsu High School Baseball Tournament, which was one of the higher numbers in the history of the Spring Baseball Tournament.

In the past two years, due to the continuous emergence of genius players, high school baseball has once again experienced a nationwide boom. With the active promotion by Takano Ren, players born around 1994, such as Lin Guanglai from Waseda Jitsugyo, Ohtani Shohei from Hanamaki East, and Fujinami Jintaro from Osaka Tsubaki, have all garnered attention throughout Japan.

According to the draw results, Hanamaki East, where Ohtani Shohei plays, will face off against Osaka Tsubaki, the top favorite to win this tournament, in the first round. Waseda, where Lin Guanglai plays, has also been placed in this bracket. This means that these three super talents, who are the same age, with similar physiques and varying technical skills, have the chance to face off at Koshien, further boosting the tournament's visibility.

As soon as the field was set up, with the marching tune playing, it was time for the players to make their appearance!

As last year's champions and this year's defending champions, Waseda Industries led the parade of participating students; as the team captain, Lin Guanglai entered with the purple champion flag of the Spring Baseball Tournament held high, drawing the attention of all the spectators.

After all schools completed the circuit and found their positions on the field, Lin Guanglai walked out of his team's formation, exchanged the champion flag with the president of Takano Ren, and received the commemorative flag of the 83rd tournament from him.

The fine drizzle did not affect the fiery passion in the hearts of many players present—this tournament has the most A Level teams in the history of the Spring Baseball Tournament, with six schools; the eyes of these team members have all been drawn to the champion flag.

Fujinami Jintaro was also among them.

Drawing Hanamaki East in the first round and sharing a bracket with Waseda Jitsugyo—after experiencing the disappointment of being reversed at last year's Summer League and missing out, for Fujinami Jintaro, who is determined to accomplish something great this year, this draw result couldn't be more ideal.

He has absolute confidence in himself and his team—any team standing in the way of Osaka Tsubaki will ultimately be crushed mercilessly!

The entry ceremony had few steps, and it ended quickly; except for the six schools that needed to play three matches, the other teams left the field for self-training.

Waseda's match was scheduled for the second day of the tournament, in the second match, with a prime time slot, which showed how highly Takano Ren regarded them—even though their new team had been in poor form, they were still the defending champions, and Lin Guanglai's popularity alone was enough to draw a large crowd to the match.

Time flew by, and it was soon the next day.

March 22, the second day of the tournament, the second match was about to begin.

Entering Koshien from the players' tunnel, players on both sides were doing their pre-match warm-ups—it had been half a year since they last returned to Koshien Stadium, but the circumstances were quite different from half a year ago.

In this tournament, Waseda did not set a clear target—the most important thing was to seize the high-intensity competition opportunity to seek harmony and regain the sense of victory from last year; as for the results, it was more about taking one step at a time.

Fortunately, their draw wasn't particularly bad. Although they were placed in the same bracket as the strong Osaka Tsubaki, if the two teams could meet, it would be in the semifinals.

Waseda's first-round opponent was Celestial Principle High School from Nara Prefecture, also from the Kansai region—their strength was fairly average, ranking in the middle among all participating teams, making them a suitable opponent for the current Waseda team.

In the Daily News commentary box, the commentator responsible for live broadcasting was looking at the monitor showing the feed, beginning the introduction of both teams for this match:

"Good morning, high school baseball fans! We are now at Koshien Stadium, bringing you live coverage of the 84th Senbatsu High School Baseball Tournament."

"You are watching the broadcast of the second match on the second day of the tournament, a first-round game, with Celestial Principle High School from Nara Prefecture, batting first on the third base side; and Waseda Industrial School from the West Tokyo region, the champions of the 83rd tournament, batting second on the first base side."

"Celestial Principle High School has appeared in the Spring Baseball Tournament for the 22nd time in 5 consecutive years—since forming their new team, their official record is 7 wins and 2 losses, with a team batting average of .297 and six home runs; they've built a quite formidable team around ace pitcher Yamamoto Ryuya."

"On the defending champions' side, after achieving the historic feat of winning both the Spring and Summer Leagues consecutively for the seventh time last year, they faced the challenge of a massive player turnover, having lost only to Teikyo Junior & Senior High School in the Autumn Tokyo Tournament final, but that was last autumn; in the new school year, from the information we have, the defending champions' performance in warm-up games has been lackluster, clearly indicating there's still a fair amount lacking in terms of team cohesion—that's why, even having the strongest players in Takano's view, most media have rated this team as B Level."

"Now to introduce the starting nine—"

"For Waseda, the starting battery remains last year's champion pitcher-catcher combination, number 1, third-year Lin Guanglai, and number 2, third-year Uesugi Yasuyuki."

"First baseman Suzuki Daigo, third year; second baseman Yamaga Daiki, second year; third baseman Yoshimi Kentaro, second year; shortstop Egami Kenji, third year; left fielder Ogata Kazuyoshi, third year; center fielder Yagaki Kentaro, third year; right fielder Yoshimi Kentaro, second year."

"Among the starting nine, six third-year players have previous summer competition experience—their game experience far exceeds that of today's opponent, Celestial Principle High School."

"For Waseda, the main issue is whether their relatively weak batting lineup, which has been lacking since last autumn, can provide offensive support for their ace today? You can see that Lin Guanglai's position in the lineup has been adjusted from the clean-up hitter to the leadoff spot, which might be a strategy the team had no choice but to adopt—although the RBIs might be fewer, at least Lin will get more opportunities to bat, and more strategic maneuvers will be available on base..."

While the live commentators were still discussing Waseda's arrangements for this game, the players on the field completed the pre-game salutation ceremony.

Lin Guanglai walked up to the pitcher's mound with a blank expression, ready to make his first appearance in this Spring Baseball Tournament.

Since he had agreed to take on the responsibility, he would definitely see it through!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.