Korean Japanese school misses national high school title after quarterfinal loss

Kyoto International High School pitcher Ikki Nishimura reacts during a Summer Koshien game against Yamanashi Gakuin High School at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Japan, on Aug. 19. [YONHAP]

 
Kyoto International High School ended its run for a second consecutive Summer Koshien title after losing 11-4 to Yamanashi Gakuin High School in the quarterfinals on Tuesday at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Japan.
  
Kyoto International took the lead early, scoring one run at the top of the first inning. In the bottom of the second, Yamanashi Gakuin scored five runs to take the lead.
 
 
Ace pitcher Ikki Nishimura, who led the team to victory last year and started the game, struggled against Yamanashi Gakuin’s concentrated offense. The opposing team’s strategy to focus on Nishimura’s fastballs and ignore his breaking pitches proved effective.
  
Yamanashi Gakuin added three runs in the fifth inning, one in the sixth and two in the seventh. Despite the widening gap, Kyoto International remained aggressive.
 
The defending champions scored once in the eighth and added two more in the ninth on a double by No. 9 batter Genki Fujimoto, a triple by leadoff hitter Hats Hasegawa and a sacrifice fly from No. 2 hitter Eiji Hasegawa.
 
But their final efforts were not enough to turn things around from an eventual 11-4 loss, though each run drew loud cheers from the dugout and a warm ovation from spectators as the team left the field.
  
Kyoto International has qualified for the Summer Koshien in three of the four years since its 2021 debut. Last year’s tournament marked the first national title in the school’s history, a feat made more remarkable by the team’s relative inexperience and substandard facilities — the school’s baseball field does not even meet regulation size.
  
For the Korean community in Japan, the school’s success carried particular significance.
 
Though Japanese students now make up about 70 percent of the student body, Kyoto International continues to embrace its roots as an “Korean ethnic school,” founded by Korean residents in Japan to preserve their cultural identity.
 
Founded in 1947 by the Korean Japanese community, Kyoto International was originally not recognized by the Japanese government. But after gaining accreditation in 2004, the school now serves both Korean Japanese and Japanese students.
  
The school’s Korean-language anthem rang through the stadium and across television broadcasts after each win this year.
 
The song begins with the line, “Across the East Sea, the land of Yamato is the sacred dream site of our ancestors,” a nod to its heritage.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SONG JI-HOON [[email protected]]