Chiben Wakayama Beat Kanto Takasaki 4-3 to Win 4th Summer Koshien Title

Chiben Wakayama rallied in the eighth inning to defeat Kanto Gakuin Daigaku Takasaki 4-3 in the 108th Summer Koshien championship final at Hanshin Koshien Stadium on Saturday, August 22, 2026. A squeeze bunt tied the game moments after the Gunma side had taken the lead on a two-run homer, and a wild pitch delivered the go-ahead run as Chiben claimed its fourth summer national title — the school’s first since 2021.

Editor’s note: This article draws on match reporting from The Mainichi (Kyodo), TBS NEWS DIG, Nikkan Sports, and tournament data from the Japan High School Baseball Federation, August 22, 2026.

Match at a glance

Detail	Information
Tournament	108th National High School Baseball Championship (Summer Koshien)
Round	Championship final — Day 15
Date	Saturday, August 22, 2026
Venue	Hanshin Koshien Stadium, Nishinomiya, Hyogo
Final score	Chiben Wakayama 4, Kanto Gakuin Daigaku Takasaki 3
Chiben starter	Kokumi Nagai
Takasaki starter	Satoshi Ishishigaki
Winning pitcher	Kota Waki (Chiben) — relief from 6th inning
Save	Ryota Hisaba (Chiben) — 9th inning

Score by inning

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R
Kanto Takasaki	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	0	3
Chiben Wakayama	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	×	4

How the final unfolded

Chiben strikes first

Kanto Gakuin Daigaku Takasaki — commonly known as Kanto Takasaki — entered the final as a pitching powerhouse. The Gunma school had allowed just two runs across five tournament games with a staff ERA of 0.20, and ace Satoshi Ishishigaki took the mound in the championship game with the confidence of a team that had won Spring Koshien in 2024.

Chiben, however, broke through in the second inning. Kohei Yamashita ripped an RBI triple and Yusei Nagatomo followed with an RBI double to put the Wakayama side ahead 2-0. From there, Chiben’s staff held the line through the middle frames while Ishishigaki and a succession of Takasaki relievers kept the deficit manageable.

Takasaki claws back

Takasaki finally scored in the sixth when Rengi Kano delivered an RBI hit to cut the lead to 2-1. The game stayed there into the late innings, with both dugouts leaning on deep pitching rotations built for a low-scoring Koshien stage.

In the top of the eighth, Chiben reliever Kota Waki — who had entered in the sixth and retired six straight batters — allowed a leadoff single to Kano. Two outs later, Takasaki captain Yusei Ishida drove a two-run homer just inside the right-field foul pole, flipping the score to 3-2 and sending the Takasaki bench into celebration.

The eighth-inning turnaround

Chiben answered immediately. With one out and runners on second and third in the bottom of the eighth, Kazumasa Kawahara laid down a successful squeeze bunt to plate the tying run. Two outs later, with runners on first and third, Ishida — now pitching — threw a wild pitch that allowed the go-ahead run to score from third.

The stadium erupted as Chiben took a 4-3 lead it would not surrender. Ryota Hisaba closed out the ninth to seal the championship, and players from both schools lined up in tears and applause at the end of a one-run classic.

What the title means for Chiben Wakayama

Saturday’s victory was Chiben’s fourth summer Koshien championship, tying PL Gakuen for the fifth-most summer titles in tournament history. Combined with one spring crown, Chiben’s five national championships rank seventh all-time, level with Tokai Daigaku Fuzoku Sagami and Toho.

Chiben Wakayama milestone	Detail
Summer titles	4 (tied 5th all-time)
Last summer title	2021 — five-year gap
Wakayama prefecture	9th summer championship; solo 2nd among prefectures nationally
Manager	Jin Nakaya, 47 — 2nd title as manager (also 2021)

Jin Nakaya, who took over in 2018, was the starting catcher on Chiben’s 1997 summer championship team. His second title as manager came after a tournament run that included an 11-inning tiebreaker win over Tsuruga Kehi and a 7-1 semifinal rout of Yokohama, where Chiben knocked ace Shoki Oda — who had thrown a Koshien-record 156 km/h fastball — out of the game early.

Takasaki’s near-miss

For Kanto Takasaki, the loss ended a historic summer. The school reached its first-ever Summer Koshien final behind one of the strongest pitching staffs in the field, using eight different pitchers across the tournament. Ishishigaki had thrown 20⅓ innings with just one earned run before the final.

Ishida’s eighth-inning homer briefly looked like the moment that would deliver Takasaki its first summer title to go with its 2024 spring championship. Instead, the wild pitch in the same inning became the defining image of a final decided by inches and execution under pressure.

A landmark 108th tournament

The 108th Summer Koshien drew 49 regional champions from a pool of 3,363 teams that began qualifying tournaments nationwide. This edition introduced video review for the first time at the summer tournament and featured the debut of five female umpires, ending a long-standing tradition of all-male officiating crews.

Heat mitigation measures also continued, with games split into morning and evening sessions to limit exposure during Japan’s peak summer temperatures. Saturday’s final capped an 18-day tournament that began on August 5 and produced one of the most dramatic championship games in recent Koshien memory.

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Discussion

Chiben’s eighth-inning rally turned a pitching duel into an instant Koshien classic — but the broader story is how two very different team identities collided in the final.

1. Takasaki built the tournament’s best pitching staff and took a late lead in the final. Does a one-run loss on a wild pitch diminish that run, or does reaching a first summer final still mark a breakthrough season for Gunma baseball?

Kano’s hit and Ishida’s homer showed the lineup could answer Chiben’s offense when it mattered most — until the squeeze and the wild pitch flipped the script.

2. Chiben knocked out Yokohama and Shoki Oda in the semifinal, then survived a two-run deficit in the eighth. Is this the most complete team of the 108th tournament, or did the final simply reward the side that handled pressure better over one inning?

Nakaya’s program has now won twice in five years after a 2021 title — a sustained run at a tournament where most schools never reach the final once.

Share your read on whether Kawahara’s squeeze or Ishida’s homer will be the play remembered from this championship game.

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