A few days passed.

Everyone's low mood has almost passed, so the baseball club held a reflection meeting in the department activity room to prepare for a summary.

Before starting the reflection session.

Takuji asked two managers to distribute notes and pens to the members, intending to ask them to write down their expectations for the baseball club.

He has discovered that the biggest problem in baseball now has become the mentality of the players.

At last year's county meet, after White Mountain High School won its first victory in 11 years, the team fell into an embarrassing situation of neither getting better nor worse.

What are you continuing to work hard for?

If this problem is not solved first, players will not be able to give their best during training and games.

How to set the team's goals must be clarified at this stage.

Ms. Kato Monami explained the situation to the club members and emphasized: "Don't discuss it with others. Write it down on paper yourself first. Remember to write your name."

"Write down what you hope the team will do in the future."

After listening to the senior sister's explanation, the first-year students didn't worry too much and quickly wrote down their ideas and handed them in.

On the contrary, the senior members were more hesitant, pondering each and every one without making any move.

The managers did not rush them, but stood aside and waited quietly.

Hiroki sat there, holding a note in one hand and a pen in the other, lowering his head and thinking.

He raised his head and looked at others with concern, frowned, licked his dry lips, seemed to have made up his mind, lowered his head and started writing.

"Is everything written?"

After putting the note away, Kato Monami confirmed again.

"Then I'll study, starting from the first grade."

Kato Monami picked up the pieces of paper and read: "The team's goal,"

...

"Iba-kun, Koshien."

"Kazaya-kun, dominate the third level."

"Zhejun, Koshien appears."

...

Soon, Kato Monami had read all the notes from the first grade.

really.

As Takuji Higashi expected, most of the first-year students wrote about Koshien and their dreams were to enter the national competition.

After all, the freshmen who have just entered high school have not experienced the cruelty of a high school single-elimination tournament. They are all excited and want to go to Koshien every day.

A simple first grader.

You will never learn to give up until you have experienced failure over and over again.

Learn to let go of the dreams you wrote when you were young and ignorant.

Just like the seniors who try to deceive themselves, if they don't really try their best, when they fail again, the pain may be reduced a little.

Kato Monami picked up the slips of paper again and read: "Now is the senior year."

...

"Komada-kun, Koshien appears."

Um.

The seniors nodded, indicating that they understood.

...

"Ichikawa-san, Koshien."

Um?

"With Sensang, the county meeting will be the winner."

Um??

"Sang, national competition."

Uh-huh?

"Ito-san, come out to Koshien."

Eh?

"Iwata-san, the county champion."

Eh??

"Yamamoto-san, Mie Prefecture wins."

Eh?

...

When Kato Monami read out the content on the note, the seniors all looked at each other, looking like "Why did you write this?"

You are already in third grade, why are you still...

Toshi was also very pleased to see his players make up their mind to express their deepest dreams.

The biggest fear is that the players have no goals at all.

As long as there is still one person who is willing, Totoji will take them along. No difficulty can stop the children from pursuing their dreams.

"Okay, everyone knows exactly what they and their companions want."

Dong Tuoji clapped his hands and said clearly: "So that means..."

"Everyone wants to go to Koshien."

The players nodded one by one.

Even the upperclassmen, who knew their chances were slim, nodded solemnly.

It's the last summer of third grade, and they won't be willing to give up if they don't work harder.

Smiling, Totoji straightened his face.

"In this case, we don't have time to be depressed about failure. We must have corresponding awareness and work hard towards our dreams. Do you understand!"

"yes!"

Everyone responded with a roar.

..................

In the subsequent discussion, Totoji finished arranging the training matters for the evening, and all members held a reflection meeting together.

First, the senior players stood up and apologized to everyone, lamenting their poor performance in the game.

Then Tetsu Nishino and others also came out to reflect.

In fact, the gap in strength caused by the huge gap in training time is not so easy to make up for.

Even if Hakusan High School deploys tactics, they may not be effective on the playing field. To put it bluntly, the improvement of one's own strength is the most important thing.

Pitching, hitting, fielding.

Falling behind famous teams across the board.

Let’s talk about pitchers first.

White Mountain High School currently has three pitchers who can be considered as immediate players.

Gochi Iwata, Sakuya Yamamoto and Kazuya Nishino.

Two third-year pitchers and one first-year pitcher.

But I have to say that none of the three pitchers are strong enough. They would be fine in an ordinary school. If they go to a prestigious school, they will probably have to sit on the bench.

Although Yamamoto Sakuya is currently the team's No. 1 pitcher, his ball speed is not high.

Including the ball speed of the change ball, the average speed is below 130 kilometers.

In other words, the way he pitches to batters depends heavily on the team's fielding status.

Therefore, formal competitions usually start with Gochi Iwata.

But Gochi Iwata is also prone to explosion.

The top speed of the ball can reach 140 kilometers, and Gochi Iwata's straight ball is barely enough, and he also has a slider that can be used as the winning ball.

The problem is that Gochi Iwata's ball control is very unstable, with relatively many bad balls, and it is easy to miss a good shot after four bad balls.

As for Kazuya Nishino, his fastest straight ball can travel 146 kilometers, and he is definitely a talented player among first-year pitchers.
To be continued...