Seoul Convention High School advanced to the semifinals of its first national championship with a miraculous reversal drama at the 78th Golden Lion. It seemed that the team had to worry about losing the cold game due to its 0-5 lead, but the result was a come-from-behind victory. Against Busan High School, the winner of last year’s Golden Lion, he claimed to be a master of the reversal.메이저놀이터
Seoul Convention High School defeated Busan High School 7-5 in the quarterfinals of the 2024 National High School Championship and the Weekend League match held at Mokdong Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Saturday. It is the first time for the team to advance to the semifinals of a national championship. The team has posted its best performance since its foundation in 2020. Following its first advance to the round of 16 teams in its first year and the quarterfinals in its second year, the team has continued its strides in the “Golden Lion Championship” through this year’s semifinals.
The results are miraculous in many ways. Seoul Convention High School has a short history and poor training conditions compared to other teams. As schools do not have a baseball field, they have to go to an away training camp in Gyeonggi Province. As it is only an outdoor training facility, they have to ask for understanding where an indoor training field is located to exercise in case it rains.
Despite this situation, the players and the coaching staff did their best every day and achieved the result of reaching the semifinals. “We have done our best in training. We are a team that cannot win unless we are united. If we are 7 or 8 players, we only need unity to fill the rest to get to 10 players. That is why we focused on team play and I think the results have come true,” Yoo Young-won said.
“Director Yoo Seung-hyun takes great care of the baseball team. In fact, there are some people in the school who don’t know much about our existence, but it has changed a lot these days,” he said, thanking the school for its support.
Seoul Convention High School defeated Kyunggi High School 2-1 in the round of 16, but Shin Jin-kyu, starting pitcher, was banned from the game due to limited number of pitches. Lee Dowoo, a promising pitcher with a speed of 150 kilometers per hour, was a reliable pitcher who allowed one point during the sixth ⅔ of this year’s championship. However, Lee was in danger from the beginning as he allowed five runs (four earned runs) through the second inning. Instead, second-grade pitchers cheered up. Park Si-woo (1st ⅓ inning) and Kim Ki-bum (4th ⅔ inning) combined for six scoreless innings.
Park Si-woo, who changed his position to a pitcher this year after playing as an outfielder, displayed the best performance in the number of pitches he could manage. From the start of the fourth inning to the bases loaded with one out in the fifth inning, Park pitched one ⅓ scoreless. The crisis in the fifth inning was overcome by the hero of the day, Kim Ki-bum. Kim is an underhand pitcher whose fastball speed is only 120 kilometers long. Instead, he overcame the crisis by striking out while freely performing “up shot” curves even at a disadvantageous ball count. Kim pitched 74 pitches during four ⅔ innings until the end of the game, becoming the winning pitcher without allowing a single point.
“I never expected to win like this. I tried to do my best, and I made the semifinal that we aimed for. I used up all the pitchers, but I will do my best to advance to the semifinals one by one,” Yoo said. He is committed to not only advancing to the semifinal, but also aiming for victory in the semifinal. Even after all the players returned home, Yoo remained in the stadium with his coach Kim Joo-hyung to watch the match between Deoksu and Gwangju Jeil High School. Deoksu ended up winning 7-3. Deoksu is considered the champion of Shinsegae E-Mart Cup last month and the strongest team in high school baseball this year. The semifinal match between Seoul Convention High School and Deoksu will take place at Mokdong Baseball Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. SPOTV will air it live.
Meanwhile, Busan High School faced a variable in this game in which Kim Jung-yeop was rested due to the limited number of pitches, and even “High School All-Star” pitcher Cheon Gyeom could not take the mound. As he did not try to use Cheon Gyeom too much, the range of pitchers was narrowed. Second-year pitcher Park Joon-gun held a 5-0 lead by throwing four scoreless innings, but he missed the opportunity to score additional points after the middle of the game and was chased little by little from the fifth inning. He tried to win the Golden Lion title for two consecutive years following last year, but finished his schedule in the quarterfinals.