The Seido High School Baseball Team achieved its predetermined goal.
How should this feeling be described? It was like estimating your score after an exam while holding the answer key in your hand.
Originally, the Seido High School Baseball Team had set its own expectation at eighty points. Even scoring in the low seventies would not have been unacceptable much like stopping at the national Sweet Sixteen before. But there would inevitably have been regrets.
Now, after checking the answers, the score they could tally had already exceeded eighty.
In other words, their predetermined goal had been accomplished. From this point on, there could only be pleasant surprises, no more unexpected setbacks.
One by one, the players of the Seido High School Baseball Team relaxed their tense expressions.
The heavy burden on their shoulders was finally lifted.
The days ahead would now be about striving for higher goals.
Their goal had been achieved, but on the other side, Shinko High School, blocked from the Elite Eight was crying miserably, one after another.
They couldn't help but feel distraught.
If it were just losing the game, that would have been one thing. Almost every region in the country has powerhouse teams, and there are no fewer than twenty top-tier ones. Because of that, reaching the national Sweet Sixteen is considered an acceptable and justifiable result for these powerhouses.
They might not have been surprised by such a result, but they could certainly have accepted it.
They could accept losing.
But they could not accept losing like this.
Nineteen to one.
The Seido High School Baseball Team had scored nearly twenty runs.
To put it bluntly, Shinko High School had been completely suppressed in their match against Seido, with no ability to fight back whatsoever.
They were brutalized.
If this had been an ordinary grassroots team, such a tragic result would have been understandable. With nothing to begin with, tragedy would simply have been tragedy, and not many people would care.
But Shinko High School from Kyoto was clearly not in that category.
They were a well-known national powerhouse. Even when facing Seihou or Osaka Kiryuu, they were not without a fighting chance. Any team that encountered them would not have an easy time and would never dare to be careless.
That was the strength and influence of a powerhouse.
With such strength and influence came corresponding expectations and responsibilities.
They could lose games but they could not lose this badly.
This result was equivalent to completely dragging them down from their position as a top-tier powerhouse.
No true top-tier powerhouse would be so thoroughly crushed by another team.
Let alone high school teams even among professional baseball teams, a top-tier powerhouse would not be dismantled to this extent in a single game.
Yet Shinko High School now found itself in exactly such a pathetic state.
There were only two possible explanations for this result.
Either the Seido High School Baseball Team had surpassed the level of a national top-tier powerhouse perhaps even approaching professional standards.
Or Shinko High School's strength simply no longer qualified them as a top-tier powerhouse.
The answer was obvious.
Has the Seido High School Baseball Team surpassed professional baseball teams and become stronger than those twelve elite squads?
That was clearly impossible.
Which left only one explanation.
This year's Shinko High School simply wasn't that strong.
They did not measure up to the standard of a national top-tier powerhouse.
That was the reality.
Although a single game could not completely strip Shinko High School of its status, this result was an extremely dangerous one that sent a very troubling signal to the public.
If something like this happened one or two more times, then no matter how unwilling Shinko High School might be, they would likely be forced out of the top-tier powerhouse category.
The Seido High School Baseball Team had no interest in the other team's sorrow or tears.
They cared only about the victory they had already secured.
They won.
They had made it into the Elite Eight of Koshien.
"Three more games…"
Azuma Kiyokuni raised three fingers, reminding everyone that with three more victories, they could achieve Seido High School Baseball Team's ultimate goal.
To dominate the nation.
Of course, there were hidden dangers within the team.
Ace Hidezawa had been pitching for too long.
Even with rest periods between games, such high-intensity matches placed immense strain on a player's physical condition and stamina. According to common sense, if Seido High School Baseball Team failed to find a substitute to give Hidezawa one or two games of rest, it would be extremely difficult for him to maintain peak condition all the way to the finals.
Besides Hidezawa, as the tournament progressed, some other minor flaws within the team had also begun to surface.
But was now the time to talk about those things?
Every teammate was well aware of the difficulties that lay ahead.
And they also understood that these difficulties were unavoidable and could not simply be wished away.
Worrying about them endlessly would not make them disappear.
On the contrary, if they constantly dwelled on these problems, the difficulties would only grow larger in their minds, eventually becoming a massive obstacle blocking Seido's path.
Thinking without acting solves nothing.
It only leads to discouragement.
The correct attitude when facing difficulties is to solve them.
And if they cannot be resolved immediately, then one must relax, boost morale, and wait for the right moment.
When that moment comes, a single burst of effort can sweep away all obstacles.
What Azuma Kiyokuni was doing now was exactly that, boosting everyone's morale.
As long as morale was high, those unstable factors could at least be temporarily suppressed.
Zhang Han looked at his senior in surprise.
Rotund and gluttonous-looking as he was, it was hard to imagine such words coming from Azuma Kiyokuni's mouth.
"Senior is really… unexpected."
There were several players on the team who remained as clear-headed as Zhang Han. But even knowing the reason behind Azuma Kiyokuni's actions, they still instinctively followed along.
"Three more games!"
"All out!!"
"Everyone says the opponents at Koshien are incredibly strong, but it seems they're not that big a deal, nothing to be afraid of!"
The Seido High School Baseball Team united as one, their eyes fixed firmly on the national championship.
However, immediately afterward, bad news arrived with the Elite Eight draw.
Their next opponent was Osaka Kiryuu, one of the championship favorites.
One of the strongest national powerhouses.
The so-called Cosmic Team.
The two major championship contenders at this Koshien were Seihou High School and Osaka Kiryuu.
Seihou focused primarily on defense.
Osaka Kiryuu, before Seido High School burst onto the scene, was widely regarded as the team with the strongest offense in the nation.
Even after Seido's rise, Osaka Kiryuu remained one of the strongest contenders for that title.
The upcoming match between the two teams could be seen as a clash between the nation's most powerful offenses.
This game would not only determine who advanced to the Koshien Final Four, It would also decide which team truly possessed the strongest offense in the country.
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