Nichidai San, Koshien champions! 日大三、優勝！

I created a special tag just for this team: Sanko 畔上組, meaning the "Azegami Team". I needed something to specify that I meant this particular Sanko team; it's a strong baseball school in general, but like I've been saying, this year's particular group of 9 boys are particularly special. Anyway, in case you didn't already hear, this morning was the final match of Koshien, and your 2011 Koshien champions are none other than Nichidai San! Blatantly stolen from Mainichi. Go see their photos of the final game. I'm both overjoyed to see them win, and sad that it's all over. Not to say that Kosei wasn't a decent opponent, because that's not true. Their pitcher Akita actually seemed to have a lot more energy than Sanko's Yoshinaga, who was clearly exhausted. But, just like he's done the last few games, when he really, really needed to, he could reach back and get something extra for a strikeout, and wait for a patented Sanko Big ...