Zama's players gather round the championship banner. (King baseball)

CAMP ZAMA, Japan – So, what is a baseball team to do when its longtime coach transfers to Germany, having won the last two Far East Division II titles, and a goodly number of players either graduate or transfer, including the old coach’s sons?

Simple. You turn to a freshman pitcher who acted like he’d faced pressure situations many times before.

That was Brody Kuchera, a Zama rookie who pitched a complete-game victory and helped himself with two hits and an RBI in four at-bats as the Trojans downed Robert D. Edgren 9-3 in Wednesday’s D-II final at Zama’s windy, dusty Rambler Field.

“Our guys worked hard all year, we took some lumps early on but we got better and better every day and came through when it mattered most,” said Trojans coach Joshua Dawes.

It was Kuchera, especially, who seemed to be born for moments like Wednesday’s final, Dawes said.

“Brody’s a freshman, we put him in during a big moment and he stepped up and came through,” Dawes said. Kuchera hit a bases-clearing triple to right field in Zama’s 22-4 semifinal win over E.J. King and had two clutch hits in the final.

“He was locked in, composed the whole game,” Dawes said.

Kuchera sparked Zama’s scoring with an RBI single to right field. Anthoni Mitchener followed with a sacrifice fly and Spencer Hughes added a run-scoring single in the first inning and Zama never trailed.

Mitchener and Ayden Moore each drove in two runs for the Trojans.

Mark Gillett, Parker Kuns and Micah Magat each had RBIs for the Eagles, who could only reply with two runs in the fourth and one in the sixth.

Zama, which finished 6-16-1, had played Edgren (16-9) regularly during the season and the Trojans “were familiar with them and we knew if we could put it all together, we could do it,” Dawes said. “There was nothing but faith in our dugout.”

And after winning the last two D-II titles at Osan, “it was fantastic to host the tournament, be able to celebrate in front of our fans, our classmates, our community; it’s great.”