KHS to sponsor top Japanese high school athletes

Kagman High School will host some of Japan’s most well-known high school athletes starting today, Nov. 17, until Monday, Nov. 20.

Sixty-three juniors from Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School’s sports course will visit Saipan for five days beginning Nov. 16, a trip which includes three nights with KHS host families where their English athletes will be tested more than their sports prowess.

This elite school is famous throughout Japan for its sports program, which has turned out some of Japan’s top athletes in such varied sports as baseball, swimming, karate, and figure skating.

This year’s juniors include two of the nation’s foremost athletes in karate and baseball. Satoshi Ono became this year’s junior karate champion in all of Asia, winning the title in a field of the best players from China, Korea, and other Asian countries.

He accomplished this feat despite his young age in a field ranging from high school sophomores to freshmen in college.

An even higher-profile player, Takuto Honda, led the KGNHS baseball as a sophomore to second place in the All Japan High School Baseball Tournament in August last year.

The nationally televised event that pits the 49 best teams from each prefecture against one another is a grueling two-week affair in which a team cannot lose a single game. By the end of the tournament, pitchers may have to play three days in a row.

For his part in the tournament, the Japanese press dubbed Honda a super ichinensei, meaning super first-year student. Japanese high schools are three years long with 10th grade being the first year.

Honda pitched the team out of some tight jams, including a thriller in which the team was behind 10-4 in the eighth inning against the extremely powerful Kanzei High School team from Okayama whose Indian-Japanese pitcher was recently drafted into the Japanese major leagues.

Honda held Kanzei in relief to two earned runs as KGNHS scored six in the eighth to tie and two more in the ninth to win.

In the final, Honda teamed up with now senior Shigekazu Kitaoka, holding the best team in Japanese high school baseball to a 3-3 tie through seven innings before allowing two late runs to lose 3-5, ending the tournament with a respectable 3.12 ERA.

By all accounts, Honda is expected to be drafted into the major leagues just after high school.

Besides these high-profile players, KGNHS boasts numerous excellent athletes who continuously make the school’s team top contenders in Kyoto Prefecture and in the nation.

Each evening for three nights, the boys will stay with Kagman families who generously volunteer to host the students.

Communication may be a major feat in itself for some of those families as some of the athletes speak minimal English. According to the baseball team’s coach Tomonao Manabe, who will travel with the students, “A few of the boys do speak some English, but most of them don’t speak very much. It’s a good experience for them though, and they are looking forward to meeting people in Saipan.”

KHS and KGNHS will participate in several sports events together, and the Kyoto students will visit Kagman classes.

When not at Kagman High School, the Kyoto Gaidai Nishi students will learn diving, participate in water sports and golf, and sightsee around the island.

This is the 11th trip to Saipan by the KGNHS group.