Diamond Ace: Another Story of Sawamura

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'The Golden Age of Qingdao!'

"..." Rongchun looked at the title in silence for a long time.

"Strong batting line-up, solid pitching staff..."

'Their activeness also heralds the long-awaited, true 'golden age' of this team.'

In the previous life, Seidou had strong hits across the board, but the pitching staff was weak, and in the match against Inami, the third year student was eliminated at the entrance of Koshien...

Eijun and Furuya grew and became stronger as pitchers and were promoted to the second year. In that year, Seidou was also known as the pitching kingdom and entered its golden age.

However, the batting line was too flat. Facing strong teams, the pitcher had a hard time, and the batting line had an even harder time. As a result, they entered the Spring and Summer Leagues with all kinds of problems and injuries.

Then there is the new generation of freshmen from Qingdao. Two freshman catchers serve two aces. Their strength was mediocre in the early stages, their batting line was just for show but without any results, and their pitchers were not outstanding either.

While the first-year students of other schools have begun to shine, those of Qingdao are still accumulating experience.

In his last year, he missed the Koshien...

"Eijun, don't be depressed, I'll definitely do it next time!"

"Yeah! Next time!"

"Finals! If you win the championship, we will even have an exclusive interview!"

"You can definitely be on TV too!"

"This is just an interview with the top eight!"

Seeing Rongchun reading the newspaper silently for a long time, everyone thought he was depressed because he didn't appear on camera, and they all started to comfort him.

"..." After a long time, Rongchun finally took action and looked up at Senior Chris, "This reporter is really good at writing articles. He writes really well."

"Ah... Yeah!" Chris was stunned by Rongchun's smile.

"What? You're not sad, kid!"

"Eijun, what did you see?" Fūya leaned over curiously to take a look, wanting to know what was written to make Eijun so happy.

Eijun didn't explain what it was, but was obviously in a good mood and went back to eating and reading the newspaper.

'yes! '

"This team is now truly the golden age of Qingdao!"

"..." Chris was also curious about what content above made Rongchun so happy and smile like that.

"An interview with Hakuryuu!" Eijun muttered to himself as he looked at the newspaper, "Oh! I didn't accept the interview because I was not feeling well."

"In this case, I don't know if I will have the chance to play in the first game if I am not feeling well."

"Eijun..." Haruichi looked at Eijun who was still amusing himself with a hint of reproach, "Maybe the director will be angry and won't let you play, and you're still joking."

"Haha... sorry!"

"..." Seeing that he was about to laugh it off again, Haruichi sighed helplessly, "By the way...how are Eijun's friends?"

“Ah…” Speaking of this, Rongchun shrugged and forced a smile, “I fell pretty hard… and even broke one of my arms…”

"Hey! He's injured so badly!"

"How high did he fall from..." Kuramochi was still wondering if it was fake, 'Is it real! '

"But since you still have the energy to argue, there shouldn't be any big problems..."

After dinner, we will take a short break and then hold a meeting on preparations for the battle at Xiu Yue Hall.

Eijun wanted to take a shower before the meeting, so he quickly ate and drank his fill and went back to his room, taking the newspaper with him.

"Where in the newspaper was it written that made him so happy..." Kuramochi also noticed this very keenly.

"Maybe it was the report that he struck out Sano consecutively..."

"Sawamura is not the kind of person who would be so happy just because of being praised..." Kuramochi replied, and thought for a moment, "Unless it's Chris Senior who praises him..."

"……"Why is there no response? Kuramochi looked at Miyuki strangely. He seemed absent-minded today.

“……”Chris noticed Kuramochi’s inquiring gaze and just smiled slightly.

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"When did this start..." Everything is developing in an unpredictable direction.

Eijun was really happy when he read the newspaper. His biggest regret was that his third-year team was stopped at the entrance of Koshien.

Therefore, this year's contestants can enter Koshien, and this regret has disappeared.

But at the same time, everyone has changed from a 'constant' to a 'variable'.

Maybe it was because everything was going so smoothly that the uncertainty of what would happen next made people feel uneasy.

"Drip~"

The phone rang, Rongchun looked at it and pressed the answer button, "Hello."

"Everything is ready, let's start tonight."

"Okay..." Rong Chun responded and hung up the phone.

"This is also a 'variable'..."

Even though he asked them all to go back, Rongchun didn't give up just like that.

Now I can only use the people who are available here...

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"Eijun! Dry your hair!"

"Yes..." Just after coming back from a shower, he was scolded by Chris senior. Rongjun hurriedly went back to find a towel.

After a one-hour break, the meeting was ready to begin.

Supervisor Kataoka, Director Ota, and Deputy Director Takashima Rei were all present.

"Sawamura, how is your friend?" Kataoka looked at Eijun and asked.

"Yes..." Rongchun held up the towel and looked at the supervisor, "I went home to recuperate after I was treated at the hospital."

"Hmm..." Kataoka nodded and looked at Chris to signal that they could start.

Chris nodded and took his notebook, pointing at the information and photos on the board, and began to introduce the information of Xiu Yue Hall in detail.

"Shugetsukan is the perennial representative of the Kumamoto region in Koshien. He has attended the Spring Koshien three times and the Summer Koshien twice. This year, he made it to Koshien in both the Spring and Summer Koshien. He won the Autumn Kumamoto Tournament, was in the semifinals of the Kyushu Tournament, and was in the semifinals of the Spring Koshien."

"Their ace, Okayoshi Taura, is a very capable small left-handed pitcher with a finely controlled changeup at around 145 km/h. He has a four-seam line drive, a fork ball, and a slider, and he has limited the number of runs he has allowed to less than 2 in all the regional tournaments."

"He and catcher Sosuke Yamada are both second-year players. They were both key players for the U15 national team in junior high school. They can be said to be the main contributors to all the achievements of this class."

At first, I was surprised at their performance this year. The quality of this alone was high enough, and they turned out to be the main players of the U15 national team.

"What a genius..."

"Genius..."

"There is also a relief pitcher, Kenji Kawabata, who will form a relay with Tanura. Although his innings are not long, we should be cautious about his pitching..."

Takashima Reiya recorded the regional finals at Shugetsukan and connected it to the TV for everyone to watch.

"Their batting line-up is also very strong. They all have basic long-hitting abilities, and there are many skilled hitters, power hitters, and hitters who have both..."

Everyone watched the match between Xiuyuekan and Songshang Academy, and already had a preliminary understanding of their strengths.

"Let's watch the video of the regional finals at Shugetsukan..." Chris looked at Eijun, "Eijun will also watch the match between Shugetsukan and Matsu Sho Gakuen later."

"Okay~" Rongchun raised his hand to indicate that he received it.

After the draw in the morning, Chris and the coaching staff immediately worked to organize and analyze the data so that they could analyze it together with everyone in the evening.

"How to hit the pitcher's ball is the key to the game..."

"The teamwork is very good..."

The meeting ended with everyone watching the game and discussing the competition, waiting for the supervisor to announce the list of players...

"In the first match, Furuya and Miyuki will start!"

"Yes!" Jyoutani, who had been dozing off, suddenly became alert and even glowed with a holy light.

"Yes!" Yukichi was stunned for a moment, but agreed immediately.

"Tamba, Kawakami, Sawamura, be ready to go on stage at any time!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!" Tamba was stunned for a moment because he shot like that in the last game, but after seeing the coach's gaze, he agreed.

"Sawamura!"

After finishing the meeting, Yuki walked over to Eijun.

"Hmm?" Eijun turned to look at Yuki-senpai in confusion.

"Those three pitches you told me..."

"Ah...that..." Even if Eijun didn't say it, he would have forgotten it.

"Correct!"

"How on earth did you guess that?"

When others heard this, they came over curiously.

"..." Eijun held his face and looked at them. In the past, Yuki-senpai would forget things very quickly, but this time he remembered it for so long.

"First, it was a great outside corner strike, then an unexpected inside corner low straight ball, and then a good inside corner high changeup strike after being chased..."

"Yeah!" These were the three ball paths he mentioned, and Yuki nodded seriously.

"It's the ball path that Senior Yusuke is least good at dealing with..." After thinking for a while, Eijun added, "But the last ball must be a corner change ball at the extreme position..."

"Or maybe you don't know, the slow and fast change of ball after the fast change of ball is the fastest way to solve the problem of the senior's match."

Eijun said calmly, shocking everyone.

"Is this... true?" Minister Ota was surprised.

"Does Yuki's attack have such a weakness?" Takashima Rei was also surprised.

"If there really is such a weakness..." Yukichi said cautiously, "I shouldn't tell you now. I'll know after I try it!"

"Azhe, do you actually have such a weakness?" Isashiki looked at Azhe in shock.

"I have no idea..." Yuki himself was shocked.

"But it's still a little difficult to suppress the opponent with all the moves. After all, if there are too many moves, people will notice..." Rongchun looked up in confusion at the end of his words.

"You can actually find such a problem..." Kataoka raised his hand and placed it on Eijun's head, rubbing it, "Takashima, can you retrieve the previous match data of Yuuki and give it to me."

"Sure." Takashima nodded and smiled. Director Kataoka wanted to verify this hypothesis himself.

"..." Rongchun was still stunned until the supervisor's hand left.

"Eijun, you're awesome." Chris also rubbed Eijun's head.

“…” Rongchun raised his eyes to look at Chris-senpai, and his expression soon turned into a happy one.

"When did you find out?" Liangjie was really puzzled. After all, they had been in the third grade for so long and no one had noticed.

"Yeah, why didn't you say it earlier?" Kuramochi was also puzzled. It wasn't that he was blaming him. Normally, if he discovered a teammate's weakness, he would tell them...

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