Seong Yeong-tak (19) of Busan High School overcame the difficulty of playing a suspended game due to rain and led the team to its first Golden Lion championship. 

Busan High School defeated Sunrin Internet High School 12-3 in the final of the ’77th Golden Lion National High School Baseball Tournament and Weekend League King of Kings’ held at Mokdong Stadium in Seoul on the 29th and won its first championship. This is his 14th national championship title. By achieving the last remaining Golden Lion championship, it became the ninth school to win all four major national competitions (Golden Lion Flag, Blue Dragon Flag, Phoenix Flag, and Presidential Cup). 

Starting pitcher Seong Young-tak became the winning pitcher with 5 hits (1 home run), 3 walks, 12 strikeouts and 3 runs (2 earned) in 6 innings. On the 27th, he took the mound in the rain and gave up two walks and the game was stopped. On this day, he started the game safely at 1st and 2nd base, and the burden was heavy, but he did not shake and took responsibility until the 6th inning, leading the team to victory. 

Seong Young-tak said in an interview after the game, “I was able to win thanks to the support of many people. In particular, senior Choo Shin-soo (SSG) gave me a lot of support. Thank you for helping our school. Thanks to the coaches and coaches who taught me well, I was able to win the championship,” he said, expressing his feeling of winning. 

Regarding the pitching on the 27th, Seong Young-tak regretted, “The plate was filled with too much water, so the pitching motion did not come out properly.” He had a great experience. Today, he started the game with a runner on the mound, but he thought he could block it enough because he was always on the mound with a runner on the mound. He believed that batters would score a lot of runs, so he thought it was OK to give one run and threw it. Thanks to him, he blocked it well, and the atmosphere seems to have improved a lot.” 

Seong Young-tak is not a fast-paced pitcher. He reached the top speed of 144 km/h in the weekend league, and his highest speed in the match was 141 km. However, he struck out a whopping 12 times by inducing hitters to miss his swing with his elaborate control and large breaking ball. In this tournament, he won 3 games (16⅓ innings) with an earned run average of 1.13 and was awarded the Outstanding Pitcher Award.

Seong Young-tak, who had fun by inducing swings of hitters who were good-looking with curves that day, said, “I analyzed it before the game, and it seemed that the bats were good at fastballs and the contact rate was low on breaking balls. He threw a fastball to make a foul and tried to strike out by inducing a swing with a breaking ball, but the result was good. Originally, he threw a lot of curveballs and sliders, but today the curveball was good,” he explained. 스포츠토토

Seong Young-tak, who revealed that his role model was Kim Won-joong (Lotte), said, “I saw Kim Won-joong at the baseball field and fell in love with the falling forkball. I think senior Na Kyun-an (Lotte) is a senior with a lot to learn from. He will work hard in the future and become a pitcher like his seniors.”