Friday, January 24, 2014

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.

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