86th Haru Koushien field announced!

Here is the announced field for the 86th Haru Koushien:

Hokkaido (1)

• Komadai Tomakomai - 3rd appearance, 1st in 9 years
  

Tohoku (2)

• Hachinohe Gakuin Kousei (Aomori) - 7th appearance, 1st in 2 years
  
• Touryou (Miyagi) - First appearance
  

Kanto ex Tokyo (4 + floating bid shared w/Tokyo)

• Hakuoudai Ashikaga (Tochigi) - 1st appearance (??!)
  
• Kiryuu Dai-ichi (Gunma) - 4th appearance, 1st in 7 years
• Yamanashi Gakuindai Fuzoku (Yamanashi) - 2nd appearance, 1st in 20 years
• Sano Nichidai (Tochigi) - 4th appearance, 1st in 7 years
• Yokohama (Kanagawa) - 15th appearance, 1st in 2 years

Tokyo (1+ floating bid shared w/Kanto ex Tokyo)

• Kanto Dai-ichi - 5th appearance, 1st in 2 years

I feel really bad for Nisshougakushadai Fuzoku... the JHBF perhaps to get more viewers chose Yokohama over a team that took Kanto Dai-ichi to the limit in the title game.  I understand it, but I certainly do not agree with it.

Hokushinetsu (2)

• Nihon Bunri (Niigata) - 5th appearance, 1st in 3 years
• Toukai Dai-san (Nagano) - 3rd appearance, 1st in 15 years

Tokai (2)

• Mie (Mie) - 12th appearance, 1st in 2 years
• Toyokawa (Aichi) - First appearance

Kinki (6)

• Ryuukokudai Heian (Kyoto) - 38th appearance, 2nd consecutive
• Chiben Wakayama (Wakayama) - 11th appearance, 1st in 3 years
• Riseisha (Osaka) - 6th appearance, 4th consecutive
• Houtoku Gakuen (Hyogo) - 20th appearance, 2nd consecutive
• Chiben Gakuen (Nara) - 9th appearance, 1st in 2 years
• Fukuchiyama Seibi (Kyoto) - 2nd appearance, 1st in 5 years

Chuugoku (2 + floating bid w/Shikoku)

• Iwakuni (Yamaguchi)  - 7th appearance, 1st in 14 years
• Hiroshima Shinjyou (Hiroshima) - First appearance

Shikoku (2 + floating bid w/Chuugoku)

• Imabari Nishi (Ehime) - 13th appearance, 1st in 4 years
• Ikeda (Tokushima) - 8th appearance, 1st in 27(!) years
• Meitoku Gijyuku (Kochi) - 15th appearance, 1st in 3 years

As expected, Meitoku Gijyuku gets the floating bid. In my opinion, they certainly deserved it.

Kyushu (4)

• Okinawa Shougaku (Okinawa) - 6th appearance, 2nd consecutive
• Misato Kougyou (Okinawa) - First appearance
• Kamimura Gakuen (Kagoshima) - 4th appearance, 1st in 2 years
• Chinzei (Kumamoto) - 3rd appearance, 1st in 24 years

Meiji Jingu (1) - Champion - Okinawa Shougaku (Kyushu)

• Souseikan (Nagasaki) - 2nd appearance, 2nd consecutive

Souseikan indeed took the Meiji Jingu bid as expected and Chinzei did indeed get a regular Kyushu bid.

21st Century Team (3)

• Western Representative - Ooshima (Kagoshima) - First appearance
• Eastern Representative - Koyamadai (Tokyo) - First appearance
• Wild-Card Representative - Kainan (Wakayama) - 17th appearance, 1st in 27 years

Koyamadai gets the Eastern bid over Kakunodate, and I'm surprised. I have to surmise that the JHBF decided to bring just 2 schools from Tokyo and determined that the 21st century bid was more important than perhaps a team that was deserving??!

*sighs*

Ooshima appeared to be a no-brainer at least talent-wise, so nothing surprising there. (Why couldn't you do that with Nisshougakushadai??)

I would have liked Ise to go to Koushien, but I cannot argue with Kainan's selection.  Both front-runners for the wild-card bid had a team already going, so giving one to a prefecture without a bid wasn't an issue. About the only thing I could argue is that Wakayama had a 21st century team go back in 2010 and Mie hasn't sent a school yet, so perhaps they could have given it to Ise, but that's about it.