Oh me, Ohmae!!!
Ohmae family all pitch in for Japan’s second win

By David Graham-Caso
Special Correspondent

Four of the last five Little League World Series championship games have involved a team from Japan.

2003’s Asian champion, the Musashi-Fuchu Little League of Tokyo is the odds-on favorite to again represent the International division in the championship game. In their first pool-play game, Japan beat up on perennial contender, Curacao, and in Monday’s evening showdown against Canada, again showed why they are the team to beat.

“I think we can win all of our games,” said Japan manager Masumi Ohmae through an interpreter.

The manager, whose daughter is assistant coach Mana Omae and whose son is second baseman Takeru Ohmae, was pleased with how his team played in their 7-0 win.

“We were nervous in the first game because it was the first game,” the skipper said. “But we calmed down tonight and hit the ball well.”

Japan scored seven runs, which was enough for their impeccable defense and stellar pitching by Hirofumi Yamazaki. Yamazaki struck out the first batter and the last batter of the game, accounting for two of his 10 strikeouts.

“That pitcher was good,” said Canada manager Henery Boutillier. “You can tell how much his speed hurt us by how much we struck out.”

“I just tried to keep control of the ball,” Yamazaki said through an interpreter. “I did not want to give them anything that they could hit.”

Japan’s runs came mostly from the top of the order. Leadoff man Hokuto Nakahara came home in the first inning on a Shigeki Umeda single up the middle, and then scored on a passed ball in the fifth. Nakahara’s RBI single drove in the second of the inning.

Two of the other Tokyo runs came off solo homers, one by Umeda in the fourth and another towering drive by Jun Onozawa in the sixth.

“It felt good,” Umeda said of his dinger. “I could feel that it was going to be a homerun as soon as it left the bat.”

Japan would add two more runs in the sixth to cap off the scoring.

Japan, now 2-0, is automatically qualified for a spot in the elimination round of the tournament. That is not to say they will not concentrate on their next game, to be played against Saudi Arabia Tuesday at 1 p.m.

“We are going to try and win,” said manager Ohmae. “We always want to win.”