On the third day of the 106th National High School Baseball Championship, the first round match between Nanyo Tech (Yamaguchi) and Komono (Mie) was held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium on the 9th. Komono’s second batter, Aito Kikuchi (2nd year), stood at bat with a white wooden bat. He was hitless in four at-bats, but in his fourth at-bat in the sixth inning, he scored an RBI with a grounder with one out and runners on first and third.

A left-handed batter known for his fast swing speed. “I want to feel the flex of the bat when I hit the ball, so a wooden bat is good. It breaks, so my concentration improves,” he said, deciding to use a wooden bat instead of a metal one from the Koshien tournament onwards. Even though he had no hits, he said “I’m hitting the center of the bat,” so he doesn’t feel bad. “I’ve hit home runs with a wooden bat in practice games. I want to use a wooden bat without bending it,” he said forcefully.

Following the complete transition this spring to new standards for metal bats that reduce rebound, the use of wooden bats by high school students is on the rise. A small number of players participated in the Senbatsu tournament using wooden bats, and Aomori Yamada’s Yoshikawa Yudai (3rd year) made headlines by scoring 5 hits out of 12 at bats for a batting average of over 40%.[Ishikawa Yuji]