This study examined the relationship between precompetitive state anxiety and competitive trait anxiety, sport motivation, sport achievement orientation, stress appraisal, and stress coping prior to competition. Sixty-five male junior high school baseball players responded to the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) on three occasions during the precompetition period: 1 week, 2 days, and 1 day before competition. They also completed a series of questionnaires 1 week prior to competition, measuring sport competitive trait anxiety (SCAT-C), sport achievement goals (TEOSQ), sport motivation (SMS), and their stress appraisal and stress-coping style when they were unable to exhibit anticipated performances in their club activity. Path analyses were employed in order to clarify the dependence of these psychological factors on the basis of the Lazarus stress model (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). It was found that the junior high school baseball players were distressed, reported high precompetitive trait anxiety and high amotivation, or reported themselves to have a high intrinsic motivation to accomplish their goal, when they felt they were unable to fulfill assignments during club activity. However, players who considered that they could cope positively with stressful circumstances reported low precompetitive state anxiety.
