March 2008 High School Tournament Rankings

Rankings 1 to 8

PL Gakuen finished the 2008 fall tournament with the fourth best ERA in the country.  Their line-up is formidable, one of the best in the country.

Yoshikawa and Fujimoto knock in runs while the others can go long, go for extra bases, and steal with speed.

Yasuda and Nakai are good role players who are versatile and great additions to the power.

Lefty Nakano leads the pitching and is heralded by scouts as one of the best in the country.  He's had back problems, but pitched through them in the fall 2008 tourney to take PL Gakuen to the championship game, only to fall to Tenri in the 11^th inning 1-0.  At one point he'd given up only three runs in four games.  His slider is the key, delivered from a very fluid release.

Backing Nakano are fastball power pitchers Inoue and Taji.

PL Gakuen will be a tough team for anyone to beat with their vast depth and versatility in every area of the team.

Waseda Jitsu, the school of Yuki Saito, the Handkerchief Prince, is back. This year's team is better than they were in 2006 when they reached the championship game of the Koshien tournament but lost to Masahiro Tanaka’s team from Hokkaido.

The line-up and defense are solid and they put up very impressive BA and ERA numbers from the powerful Tokyo regional tournament. 

What may be the most impressive is the pitching.

Their ace, Onoda, is a lanky type who gets very good whipping action on his release. He reminds some of Yu Darvish in high school and boasts a fastball in the low 90s.

Suzuki is the back-up pitcher who throws ground balls quite effectively.

They are an experienced pitching staff and the team can give Onoda rest while relying on Suzuki, a luxury not many teams have.  This keeps Onodera fresh through a rigorous weeklong tournament.

Nakano and Ono anchor the line-up, which has a high average and good power.  Oya (4) and Mori are scary for opposing pitchers.

Waseda Jitsu is definitely considered one of the favorites to take home the Senbatsu championship this year.

Pitcher Shimo-oki leads Kosei Gakuin. As he goes, they go.  That actually is not such a bad thing since he's one of the best high school pitchers in Japan. 

In the 2008 fall tournament, Shimo-oki posted a 1.83 ERA in 15 games and mixes in a nice curve with his 90+mph heat.

Backing up Shimo-oki is the trusty Rokuno. Rokuno boasts a nice arsenal of pitches including a curve, slider and screwball.

If that was not enough, Kobayashi, as the #3 pitcher throwing 80+mph, makes this perhaps the best rotation in the country.

The team batting average is high as well. #3 Matsumura and #4 Onodera are solid and Ozawa has the ability to go long as seen in the fall tournament.

The biggest reservation about Kosei is the level of competition they've seen.  If they can play against the power regions of Osaka, Wakayama, and Okinawa as well as they play against their Aomori schools, they could go all the way in March.

Keio on paper is not the best team, but considering they came out of the potent Kanagawa region with a 10-0 record and respectable numbers shows their potential to win the 2009 Senbatsu.

They have all of the intangibles: strong regional competition, an undefeated club, good pedigree and history, but with one very glaring weakness: No power. In ten games they failed to hit a home run.

Their pitching ace, Hakumura, is one of the best at this level.  He throws 92+mph heat and has a whopping curve and deceptive slider. However, he lacks experience, maturity, and is injury-prone.  Last year, he got very little playing time behind Tamura and Tadano, who are now gone.  He also misses time periodically because of a nagging back injury.  His back up is young and only throws in the low 80s. For Keio to win, Hakumura must stay healthy and be effective.

The line-up is good but not great. This is a typical small-ball team, which can win at this level if they get hot.  The 1-5 batters all have high averages with no power, and the 6-9 hitters are good enough to not be ignored.

The question is can Hakumura stay in the game and keep the score low.

The hitting on this Chukyodai Chukyo team is astronomical, but the pitching has not lived up to expectations.

The star of the team is pitching ace Dobayashi.  He has a plethora of experience. With his experience, this right-hander slings a 90mph fastball with a unique overhand release.

In a local four-game tournament, Dobayashi pitched a compete game in all four, posting a 1.29 ERA.  He needs to keep up this level of performance and keep the team from stumbling like they did in the fall tournament.

The line-up is a force. Kawai (3) and Ito (5) can swing well.  Batting second is Kunitomo who has a 2008 batting average of .545.

There is no place in the line-up for a let down by opposing pitchers.  If Dobayashi is sharp, this team could sneak up on anyone. 

Hanamaki Higashi makes their first appearance at Koshien this year.

Their lefty ace Kikuchi is stellar and carries the team. His pitch menu includes a slider and a screwball, topped by a 90+mph fastball.  He is an aggressive K power pitcher, and is not afraid to go after the batter. His fall tournament numbers speak volumes: 65 innings pitched, 69 Ks, 1.10 ERA.

Yoshida is a fair back-up, but an untested freshman with no experience.

The line-up features three hitters with a +400 batting average: Kawamura, Kashiwaba, and Sarukawa, but Iwate Prefecture competition is not exactly the fiercest.

This team has speed. Half of the players can run a 50-meter dash in less than six seconds, which will help them string some runs and steal bases.

The catcher, Chiba, has not allowed a single stolen base since the start of the fall tournament and the team on the whole has a solid defense.

This Fukuchiyama Seibi team is difficult to read. They can pummel the likes of Tenri without hitting two home runs in a whole tournament.

There is no doubt they have played the best competition in the country and their pitching has come out squeaky clean, with a 0.59 ERA in the fall tournament.

Pitcher Nagaoka is one of the best in Japan. In 8 games in the fall tournament, he went the distance in five of them. In those games, his ERA was a paltry 0.27.

Kaisei is an extremely experienced team, with almost half of the players returning from last summer.

Ace pitcher Haruki has a nice fastball and change-up mixed with a lot of breaking balls. He pitched two complete game shutouts in the fall tournament.

Kawabuchi, who has a nice slider, backs him up and the other pitchers are nice compliments to the depth.

Freshman Itohara is a good hitter, notching hits in nine games in a row in the fall. There is no spot in the line-up for opposing pitchers to have a let down.

Akima hits over 500 and Matsubayashi, Hashimoto and Ihara all have Koshien experience. This line-up also managed to steal 27 bases in eight games.

The defense is stingy, starting with a great catcher in Hashimoto.  The team allowed no errors in the fall.