Japanese High School Team Overcomes 8-0 Deficit in One of the Wildest 9th Innings You'll Ever See

High school baseball is a pretty big deal in Japan. Every year teams compete to reach the Summer Koshien to determine the best scholastic team in the country.

On Sunday, Komatsu Otani took an 8-0 lead into the ninth vs. Seiryo (Hideki Matsui’s alma mater) with a trip to the Summer Koshien on the line … and lost. There are meltdown innings and then there is the top of the ninth by Komatsu.

The clip of the entire ninth inning is 20+ minutes long. Here a couple noteworthy points:

Seiryo scored six runs before making an out.
The game could have ended on a double play, except a Seiryo player slid into first base head-first to keep the inning alive.
Komatsu made one pitching change, after Seiryo scored its first two runs — bringing in a lefty to replace a lefty. The poor reliever coughed up the next seven runs. The manager left him in the game despite giving up a massive home run that left the stadium to make it 8-6.

As you might imagine, both teams were in tears after this one ended. Crazy. [via r/baseball]