Chapter 18: One-Man-Team Dynamic

The story that Ochiai tells next is very novel for the students of Seidou High School.

If Ochiai is talking about other people's affairs, the Players of Seidou High School may not be interested to hear it. However, the protagonist in Ochiai's story is not someone else, but the current Ace pitcher of Seidou High School Sawamura Eijun.

It is about their teammate, so the players of Seidou High School naturally listened with interest.

What Ochiai was talking about was the first time Akagi Middle School participated in the Nagano Prefecture Competition, and the match against a school called Nagano Metropolitan Middle School, the champion candidate of the competition.

What is interesting is the comparison of the strengths of the two sides.

At that time, the gap between Akagi Middle School and Nagano Metropolitan High School was even bigger than the gap between Seidou High School and Akikawa Academy.

The players of Akikawa Academy are not strong, but they are generally qualified high school baseball players.

Although they are not better than the average high school baseball player, but not much worse.

Nevertheless, what kind of team is Akagi Middle School?

"I saw with my own eyes the batter ran in the opposite direction after hitting a hit, that is, in the direction of the third base instead of the first? Can you imagine this?"

Ochiai's voice was not high, but there was a firmness to it.

Players of Seidou, look at him with disbelief in their eyes.

If they heard correctly, Ochiai just said the Nagano's quarterfinals. Even if the overall strength of Nagano cannot be compared with that of a fierce battle zone like Tokyo, the team that can make it to the quarterfinals will not be so clueless about baseball, right?

Thinking about it, they turned their eyes to Sawamura for verification.

Sawamura's whole face was as red as a monkey's butt. Hanging him on that pole and people think it's a red light and will stop all the cars coming and going.

'Embarrassing, so embarrassing!'

Considering what his Players did, Sawamura wanted to find a hole and bury himself there alive.

'Was he Yamaguchi or Aoi?'

It's been so long that Sawamura can't quite remember who it is. However, it should be Aoi, because Sawamura was very surprised with that too when it happened, because he was at third base at the time, and after seeing the ball fly out he ran back to home base.

And Aoi was running in his direction!

It's hard to imagine Sawamura's mood at that time.

However, he was very embarrassed right now, so he decided to use all the grabbling skills he learned from Kuramochi-senpai on Aoi Ren well so that the boy could remember it for as long as possible.

Seeing Sawamura like this, other people understood that what Ochiai said was true.

Now, the eyes they looked at Sawamura were even more different!

Could it be that Sawamura led such a baseball team to the national championship?

"The difference in strength is so big, but at the end of the game, it was still the baseball team of Akagi Middle School who won."

Saying that, Ochiai put his eyes on Sawamura.

"I think there is probably no other student than Sawamura who knows more about such a one-man team. I don't know from the perspective of you, the founder, Core, and Coach of such a team, what is the weakness of a team like that?"

Sawamura was even more embarrassed and wanted to find a hole in the ground to bury himself immediately, but Ochiai didn't care about this and asked him out.

Sawamura certainly avoided speaking of this humiliating past.

Now, all the players in Seidou High School have their eyes on him, including Miyuki-senpai and Chris-Shisho.

Even if Sawamura wanted to escape, there was nothing he could do.

In the end, under the watchful eyes of Kataoka, Ochiai, and all the players of the first string of Seidou High School, Sawamura reluctantly explained Akagi's weakness.

"I don't know if it is the same situation as Akikawa's, but as far as Akagi is concerned, the biggest weakness is actually the Core of the team."

'The biggest weakness is the Core?'

Everyone's eyes looked at Sawamura in confusion. Wasn't the original Akagi Middle School built with Sawamura as the Core?

Sawamura should be the strongest point of the entire team, how can he be the weakness?

This is not reasonable.

"Stinky boy, you're just talking nonsense there."

Kuramochi even questioned directly with dissatisfaction.

Sawamura raised his hand, telling Kuramochi to be calm.

"The weakest point of a one-man team, of course, is that one man. For example, if the core is a pitcher then everything in the team will work with the pitcher as a core, everything.

Whether it was pitching, fielding, containment, everything.

The same for the attack if the core is the fourth batter, the scoring will depend on the fourth batter.

And every other batter will just be there to help the batter advance on bases or run home when he scores a hit."

"When a strong team faces that one-man team they will see the one-man as too dazzling and maybe scary, so they will focus on the weak teammates instead.

And that's exactly what the one-man team wants."

The players and the supervisors were surprised but continued to listen.

"For example, you choose the weak fielder and focus your attack on his side. The pitcher will send the ball with tricky courses to jam your swing and send the ball straight to the pitcher.

Or you decide to not face the fourth batter and get the number of Outs from the other weak batters so you Walk the fourth batter, and then the team will react by cooperating with the fourth batter by helping him steal bases or using a bunt for forced scoring.

The game will become a mouse and cat chase, and before you know it you are behind in score and the game ended, so you lost."

"But if you do the opposite and target that one man, for example, if he was a pitcher you target his prized Breaking ball and hit it off successfully and constantly, the whole defense will collapse easily.

Or if he was the fourth batter and you solve him forcefully and directly, the whole attacking lineup would collapse and no one would get on base.

Because the team is built on the one-man as the absolute core, if he fails the whole team fails, if you ignore him you will fall in their tempo and lose."

Sawamura's long speech made the players of Seidou High School stupefied for a moment.

They didn't expect that Sawamura, who was laughing and joking with them normally would speak so complicatedly!

Nevertheless, when you think about it, it's not surprising. After all, Sawamura is different from them.

Sawamura can be said to be the person who has won the highest honor in the current Seidou High School team!

Getting twice into the national competition with a public school team, and winning the championship, is indeed a miracle!

Not only as a player, he was also the acting coach of Akagi Middle School at the time.

"Everyone thinks that because the other teammates are weak they will be easy to target. But the point is because they are weak they only train in the countermeasures that they will carry out when they are targeted!

However, if you defeat the Core they have no idea what to do, they are not that strong anyway. Even if they see the opponent targeting the core they are not strong enough to support him."

When Sawamura finished saying those words, Ochiai took the opportunity.

"That's why you guys were able to defeat Nagano Metropolitan Middle School in the first place! Because they were thinking about targeting the other Akagi players and escaping a head-to-head confrontation with you?

The opinion I want to add is very simple, the orders from Coach Kataoka are perfect. It is very difficult for Seidou High School to win this game without completely defeating Yoh Shunshin. Even if the situation of the game encounters strong resistance, please don't forget this."

…