Team match Kyusyugakuin 2016 - Highschool 9

Last time, Chuken of red team did important role in the match. He pushed back score and made slight lead 1(2) – 1(1).

Fukusho is difficult for both team here. With Fukusho score from 2 – 0 (red to white) red team would win, otherwise it depend on Taisho’s result.

Following is the youtube video from Fukusho (4/5) to Taisho (5/5).

<Fukusho>

Red player was Morikoshi and white player was Kajitani.

I think red player was not good at white player. The style of red player was standard and steady type. While white player was fast moving and preferring mixing feint movement.

Another characteristic was white player’s smaller height. It looked difficult to pin point small target moving really fast and to cope with all action of white player properly.

1:22 white player swiftly changed his position and angle to hit hiki-Men. This hit became ippon.

White player was using lateral movement and swift positioning after contacting like 0:23, 1:34 and 2:37. It confused opponent player.

At 4:29, white player changed timing. Swing a bit slowly and largely to approach and immediately smashed from unguarded side of Men.

So, the score from red to white became 1(2) to 2(3), white made lead again.

<Taisho>

The red player was Koshumi, and white player was Hoshiko. They also matched semifinals of individual tournament and that time Hoshiko won. I think Koshumi really wanted revenge.

You might remember Hoshiko was team member’s of WKC 2018. I remember he was Jiho at final match of Korea.

One strong point of Hoshiko (white player) was fast positioning of his hitting territory. At 5:09 he chased opponent and hit unavoidable Kote.

Even after that, white player played full strength. He must have consumed much energy. I think 6:26 red player’s Men was dominant. And 6:53 finally red player found unavoidable moment of white player and hit excellent Men.

White player became very difficult situation then; with one more ippon of red, the score would be 2(4) – 2(4) and need extra match to decide victory from both team.

So, red player would be willing to attack. It is difficult in general to keep lead only by defense in many case. The god tried white players decision.

His answer was amazing! He hit one-step Men from distance as if he hit basic practice Men! What a gut and strong heart!

In this team match, I noticed one interesting fact. First sonkyo position before match, players who did false start always lost the game. I don’t know why, but it might reflected players impatience or disconcerted feeling against dominant player than him.

Anyway, Kyusyugakuin became champion for four consecutive years. It was tremendous record and seems quite unreal to break the record. (final score from red to white; 1(2) – 3(5)).