Okinawa Shogaku Advances to 1st-Ever summer Final at National High School Baseball Championship

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:16 JST, August 21, 2025

NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo — Taito Higa delivered a tie-breaking single with two outs in the seventh inning, lifting Okinawa Shogaku to a 5-4 victory over Yamanashi Gakuin on Thursday and a place in the final of the National High School Baseball Championship at Koshien Stadium for the first time in the school’s history.

In Saturday’s final of the 107th edition of the midsummer classic, Okinawa Shogaku will face Tokyo’s Nihon University Third High School (Nichidai-san), which knocked off Gifu Commercial and Business High School (Gifu-sho) 4-2 in a 10-inning thriller in the earlier semifinal.

Okinawa Shogaku, which rallied for three runs in the sixth inning to tie the game at 4-4, got the go-ahead run in the seventh when Eimu Ginoza blasted a two-out triple to deep left, then easily scored when Higa punched a single to right field.

Yamanashi Gakuin had a final chance in the ninth inning when a pair of two-out singles put runners on first and second. But that’s where they ended as Okinawa Shogaku got the final out for its historic victory.

Nichidai-san will be playing in the final for the first time since it won the championship in 2011 after Yuki Kondo tied the game with a single in the eighth inning, then delivered the first of back-to-back RBI singles in the 10th.

With runners on first and second to start the extra inning, a sacrifice moved both up a base for Nichidai-san. Kondo and Haruki Sakurai then each singled in a run to put the Tokyo school up 4-2.

In the bottom of the inning, an error put Gifu-sho into the same situation — one out and runners on second and third — but it couldn’t bring them home.

Gifu-sho’s loss meant the end of the inspiring tournament for right fielder Haruto Yokoyama, who was born with only a stub for his right hand. He finished with five hits in 19 at-bats with three RBIs, including a tying sacrifice fly in the second inning in the semifinal.