TOKYO, JAPAN - A 17-year-old schoolgirl who became the first female to play alongside men in Japanese professional baseball will leave her team after just one year to go to university, a team spokeswoman said Thursday.

Eri Yoshida, nicknamed "Princess Knuckle", was drafted last year for a new independent league team, the Kobe 9 Cruise, which praised her side-armed knuckleball, a low-speed style of pitching.

But after a year-long contract with Kobe and having played just a handful of games, Yoshida has decided to leave the team to go to university, a club spokeswoman said.

"She wants to become a baseball instructor in the future," the spokeswoman said. "So she wants to study at university for it. The team supported her decision."

Yoshida, 155 centimetres tall and weighing 52 kilograms, has in the past said she wants to follow in the footsteps of the great Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.

Some reports said Yoshida decided to leave the club out of distrust for the financially struggling club.

She wrote on her blog: "I will not give up on my dream at this point. I will not quit baseball... I want to play in the next season after looking for a place where I can concentrate on playing."

A female professional baseball federation existed for several years in the 1950s in Japan, but Yoshida became Japan's first woman to play alongside professional male players.