When he entered Tokai Junior High, he joined the East Nagoya Stars baseball club and changed his position to catcher.

In his 2nd year in Meitoku Gijuku High School, he led his team in RBIs during the Kochi prefectural spring baseball tournament and was also selected to play in friendly matches with USA and Taiwan.

Despite being demoted to ni-gun twice during his occasional slumps, he rose to the occasion when he teamed up with ace Chihiro Kaneko, and his starts gradually increased.

[5] And ever since he helped Yuki Nishi achieve his first official win and Hayato Terahara notch his first shutout victory in 3 years, he formed batteries with them in most of their games for the rest of the season.

His momentum was halted, however, when his right index finger was fractured in a collision at the home plate with Seibu's Takeya Nakamura during the September 11 match, and he was required to rest for the remainder of the season.

On the April 8 game versus the Eagles, he batted a sacrifice fly to score a run, helped Hiroshi Kisanuki notch a 5-hit shutout win, to experience his first ever hero interview.

On their last regular season game on October 8, he led the younger Yuki Nishi to accomplish the highly coveted no-hit no-run against the SoftBank Hawks (3-0).

With his goal to appear in at least 100 games as main catcher, he played from the season's opening series then steadily continued to deliver in the team's succeeding matches.

[13] He helped Chihiro Kaneko achieve the lowest ERA among this year's NPB pitchers, and together, they were given the League's Battery Award via unanimous panel decision.

[14] He was chosen as the player's chairman for 2015 during offseason,[15] and participated in the 2014 Suzuki All-Star Series, a five-game friendly competition with a squad of US major leaguers.