School Tail-Tag's Second Round Held After a Spring-Tide Postponement — Edagawa Edges Tatsumi to Stay Unbeaten

As previously reported, the school tail-tag autumn league opened on the 14th with Edagawa Metropolitan High School beating Private Shiodome Gakuen 12–9. The following round, originally set for the 17th, was pushed back by the league to the 21st and then further to the 22nd after forecasts of severe weather ahead of the previously reported Sept. 21–23 spring tide. A school tail-tag federation official explained, "Bad weather around spring tides is a headache every year for an outdoor sport. We made the call with safety first."

As previously reported, tail-tag is a team sport in which two sides of five try to snatch each other's ribbons, and its school league ranks among the city's most popular. Unlike the previously reported large-bracket format of the student wall-racing qualifiers, the tail-tag school league runs as a near round-robin from September through November.

The second round's opponent was Tatsumi Metropolitan High School, joining the league for the first time this season. Tatsumi's coordinated defense put it ahead early, at one point leading 5–2. Edagawa's coach, in his 22nd year with the club, reflected, "Their defensive shape wasn't what we'd been told to expect going in. I resigned myself to fixing it in the second half or not at all."

In the second half, the previously reported number 7 — a second-year student and second-generation Drifter — took three ribbons in a row by exploiting gaps in the defense, pulling the momentum back. "Honestly, in the first half I couldn't read their movement at all. My teammates called out to me in the second half, and that settled me down," he said. As previously reported, a rule bars touching the actual tail of a player with nonhuman features; today, an opposing player briefly lost his footing trying to avoid it, and Edagawa didn't let the opening pass. The final score, 10–8, gave Edagawa its second straight win to open the season.

Tatsumi's captain took the loss in stride: "For our first official match, a margin like that isn't a bad start. Edagawa's focus in the second half was genuinely a threat, honestly." The school is new to the league this season and did not field a team in the previously reported student wall-racing qualifiers, but its tail-tag side showed real fight against a storied opponent.

The 22nd fell on the last day of this round's spring tide, and staff were seen carefully checking drainage along the field's edge before kickoff. As previously reported, the bay area's permeation index stayed within the "Medium" range through this tide as well, with no direct effect on play, but a federation official said, "What worried us wasn't the Yuragi itself so much as the heavy rain that tends to come with spring tides." A parent watching, 45, laughed ruefully: "Honestly, I was grateful the postponement gave me more chances to watch my kid practice."

Despite the weekday evening kickoff, roughly 100 parents and alumni from both schools turned out. A 29-year-old Edagawa graduate said, "In my day, people only showed up for the season opener. Seeing a crowd for a second-round match like today's — I'm almost jealous," visibly struck by how the club's atmosphere had changed, a contrast to the previously reported struggles of the school's wall-racing club.

The school tail-tag league runs through November, with the champion earning a December exhibition against a select team from the adult club Tokei Tails. Edagawa's next match is set for early next month. In contrast to the previously reported early elimination of the school's wall-racing club from the autumn qualifiers, the tail-tag club looks positioned to keep contending near the top again this season. "The postponement gave the players extra practice time," the coach said. "I think that was part of what we saw in the second half today."