Although they were narrowly defeated…they fought hard in the Senbatsu tournament! Iki High School Baseball Club, Nagasaki: 21 members who grew up on a remote island, “To the Holy Land Far Away”.

Iki High School in Nagasaki Prefecture put up a strong showing in the Spring Sembatsu Tournament. They faced the prestigious Toyo University Himeji, and although Ren Sakashita, one of the best pitchers in the tournament, was not in great form, they scored two runs in the first inning and led until the fourth inning. However, the team did not back down from the challenge, and the game was hotly contested.

In the February 14, 2025 issue of FRIDAY, nonfiction writer Yuji Yanagawa interviewed Iki High School captain and ace Syugo Uragami and coach Toru Sakamoto. We would like to reproduce the article for you.

21 ball players and 4 managers who have been in friendly competition since childhood

A 70-minute jetfoil ride from the port of Hakata, Kyushu, to the port of Gonoura on Iki Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, located in the Genkai Sea, was marked by a banner that read.

Iki to Koshien!

On January 24, the island received good news. The baseball team finished second in the Nagasaki Tournament last fall and reached the top eight in the Kyushu Tournament. The team’s feat, which was called a “once-in-a-century miracle” by the local community, was recognized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation, and the team was selected to participate in the National High School Baseball Tournament for the 21st Century.

Coach Toru Sakamoto, 40, was relieved.

After the fall tournament, the islanders, including the parents, were very excited. However, I had to be prepared for the possibility of not being selected. I told the students to be aware of their status as a school recommended for the 21st Century Quota and to aim to go to Koshien on their own in the summer. And if they received an invitation from Koshien, they should switch their minds to the Sembatsu Tournament.”

A major reason for the school’s selection for the 21st Century Quota is the school’s attitude, as it has worked hard to play baseball despite the disadvantages of being on a remote island. The school, where a quarter of the students go on to public universities, has classes until the seventh period, and practice time on weekdays is only two hours until 6:30 p.m., when the school dismisses completely. The ground is shared with the women’s softball and track teams, and during the fall tournaments, the teams travel back and forth between Iki and the main island of Kyushu, and during the Nagasaki summer tournaments, when the teams compete in consecutive games, they are away from the island for long periods of time.

The only way to play practice matches was to take a ferry to Karatsu Port in Saga Prefecture and charter a large bus there. In many cases, the costly and time-consuming practice matches are cancelled due to rain or wave conditions.

Coach Sakamoto, who participated in the Summer Koshien Championships as a player at Hasami High School (Nagasaki Prefecture), says, “There are some disadvantages to the islands, but they are not the only ones.

I think we can turn the disadvantages of being on a remote island into advantages. For example, it takes 1 hour and 40 minutes by ferry to get to Karatsu Port, but we can use that time to hold meetings, study, and do some light stretching. There is inevitably a financial burden on each family, but the handicap of being on a remote island is not as great as people outside the island might think.

Surprisingly, baseball is very popular in Iki, partly because there are no soccer clubs in the four junior high schools, and the level of junior high school baseball is generally high. When the core players (new third-year students) of Iki High School were in their second year of junior high school, Gonoura Junior High School was the strongest in the prefecture, and once won the Kyushu Tournament. Katsumoto Junior High School, which is also located on the island, defeated Gonoura in its last summer and participated in the All-China Tournament. Furthermore, the new second-year students are also the generation that won the “Remote Island Koshien,” a competition in which junior high school students in similar circumstances compete for supremacy.

The Iki Nine is a group of 21 ball players and four managers who were born in Iki and have been engaged in friendly competition since their childhood, aiming for the far-off Koshien. The captain and ace, Syugo Urakami (from Gonoura Junior High School), says, “The Koshien is the place to play baseball.

I have dreamed of playing in the Koshien since I was in the first grade of elementary school when I started playing baseball, and it was the mound I wanted to pitch on the most. We were born on the same island, so we have been competing with each other since our junior high school days and raising the level of our game. I came to Iki High School with the intention of going to Koshien with such friends.

However, last summer’s Nagasaki tournament, in which underclassmen Urakami and his teammates were the main players, ended in a first-round loss.

Former rivals become reassuring friends

The players’ awareness and the look in their eyes seriously changed, saying, ‘We can’t go on like this. From now on, we will aim to win all tournaments. That’s why I was stunned when we lost cold in the quarterfinals of the Fall Kyushu Tournament (to Okinawa’s Enagic Sports) because we couldn’t do anything. I want to make up for the disappointment of the fall in the Sembatsu tournament, and in the summer I want to win the Koshien championship on my own.

Atsuya Iwamoto from Katsumoto Junior High School was the one to receive Urakami’s white ball. His former rival is now a reliable presence.

Urakami’s weapon is his control, which I think is one of the best in Nagasaki. Even when he is poised on the edge of a strike or a ball, he throws it accurately. Since he doesn’t have to move his mitt, I feel that he often gets a ‘strike’ call from the umpire. The only thing I do during a game against a reliable ace is to create a pause when he is having a hard time and calm him down mentally.

Iwamoto, who is batting second, continued about the strength of Iki High School: “I played against them when I was in junior high school.

“Players I played against in junior high school and thought they were bad hitters became my friends in high school. I really enjoyed that when I first entered the school, and it was very reassuring.

Four female managers are also from Iki, and three of them have older brothers who are alumni of the Iki High School baseball team. Sakiki Akagi, a new third-year student, is one of them.

After all, we all grew up on the same island, so I think that our team’s weapon is our close friendship. There is no one who is a mood-maker, but everyone is working together to make the team exciting, so the atmosphere is very good.

I first visited Iki on January 5, the first day of practice after the new year. On that day, which was also scheduled to include a prayer for victory at a nearby shrine, the team focused on physical training, but there was also a menu that included running on the ground carrying a log. Watching the training, I was reminded of a certain Nagasaki leader and coach Sakamoto. It was Akihiko Shimizu, the current head coach of Osaki High School in Nagasaki. He is the same man who, when he was a coach at Seiho High School, put his players through this grueling program and built a strong team that won the Senbatsu Tournament in 2009. I wondered if he and coach Shimizu were close friends. When I asked him about it, he made a face and continued, “He taught me a lot of things when I was young.

He is one of the leaders whom I respect very much, having taught me many things since I was young. The log run is an efficient way to strengthen the core while also strengthening the legs and hips. In the semifinals of the Nagasaki Tournament in the fall, we were able to beat Shimizu-san (Osaki led by Shimizu-san) for the first time in an official match, and as a result, the Koshien Tournament was decided. I was deeply moved.”

The last time a school selected for the 21st Century Quota won a match against a school selected through the general selection process was in 2003 at Matsuzanto High School in Ehime Prefecture. Every year, the 21st Century Bidet High School and other 21st Century Bidet High Schools, such as Hokkaido’s Betsumi High School last year, mention the fear of losing a big game against a regular or strong school in the Koshien tournament. However, Iki, which attracted a group of promising junior high school students two years ago and made a great comeback last fall, will not be pressured. They are aiming to become the second Nagasaki school to win the national championship.

I don’t want the Senbatsu to be the goal, and I don’t want the Koshien experience to end as a “lifetime treasure. I don’t want the experience at the Koshien Stadium to be a ‘treasure for a lifetime.’ I believe that the experience in the spring must be carried over to the summer.

These words were filled with the determination of coach Sakamoto, who has no intention of letting the Senbatsu, in which his team will participate as a 21st century team, end as a one-time dream.

From the February 14, 2025 issue of FRIDAY