Recap of men’s SV.League sixth-leg matches
Torey DeFalco (source: @JTEKTSTINGS)
The closing match of the sixth leg in the men’s Daido Life SV.League in Japan produced a spectacular five-set battle between the top two teams in the current standings, in which Torey DeFalco won a mouth-watering scoring race with Miguel Lopez to fuel JTEKT Stings Aichi to a narrow, hard-earned victory at Osaka Bluteon.
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JTEKT Stings Aichi’s American outside hitter hammered out six kill blocks, three aces and 26 points in attack and tallied up a match-high 35 points towards a nail-biting 3-2 (25-23, 23-25, 29-31, 25-23, 17-15) victory, in which each of the five sets was decided by the narrowest of margins. Opposite Kento Miyaura and Brazilian outside Ricardo Lucarelli assisted TJ DeFalco with 24 and 12 points, respectively. On the other side of the net, Cuban outside Miguel Lopez led the way with 32 points, including two aces and two kill blocks, supported by opposite Yuji Nishida with 23 points and American outside Thomas Jaeschke with 17, including five aces.
This way, Aichi took a partial revenge for the straight-set defeat on the previous day, when each of the sets was also resolved by a small margin, 3-0 (25-22, 29-27, 25-23) in favour of Osaka. Lopez was the best scorer of the match with 17 points, followed by Nishida with 15 and Jaeschke with 12 (another five aces!). DeFalco and Miyaura led JTEKT with 16 points apiece.
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“I’m very happy that we were able to switch gears after yesterday’s loss and make a great comeback,” said Aichi’s Polish head coach Michal Gogol. “Both days were close, and all the sets we lost and won by 2-3 points, but I believe that we were able to grab the victory today because the whole team never gave up and continued to believe until the end.”
“I expected today’s game to be different from the one yesterday. It’s frustrating, but I’m proud of the players for fighting until the end. Our opponent is a very strong team, so this was a good lesson for our team,” said Osaka’s French head coach Laurent Tillie.
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Bluteon and Stings, on a 10-2 win-loss record each, continued to lead the standings, but now the gap between them increased to five points – 30 against 25.
Defending champions Suntory Sunbirds Osaka mastered two straight-set victories over their hosts Hiroshima Thunders to improve to a 7-3 win-loss record and 23 points in third place, while their opponents dropped one spot to sixth place on 5-7 and 15. Russian opposite Dmitriy Muserskiy was the best scorer of both matches, contributing 18 points to Saturday’s 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 30-28) win and 21 points to Sunday’s 3-0 (27-25, 25-21, 26-24) success.
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Wolfdogs Nagoya kept their fourth place in the table, now on 8-4 and 26, after picking up the full six points from their away double header against Toray Arrows Shizuoka, who are still second from the bottom, in ninth place, now on 2-10 and 7. Dutch opposite Nimir Abdel-Aziz was on fire on both competition days, hammering out a 32-point match high towards Saturday’s 3-0 (25-21, 30-28, 25-20) sweep and a 23-point match high towards Sunday’s 3-0 (25-22, 25-23, 25-17) shutout.
Tokyo Great Bears also collected six points to overtake Hiroshima to the fifth place in the standings on 7-5 and 21. They did so at home, against Nagano Tridents, who stand second from the bottom, in eighth place on 2-8 and 5. Tokyo’s Portuguese outside Alexandre Ferreira emerged as the best scorer in Saturday’s 3-1 (25-20, 25-23, 23-25, 25-18) victory with 18 points, while Polish opposite Maciej Muzaj topped the charts in Sunday’s 3-0 (25-22, 25-17, 25-20) sweep with 14 points.
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Another four double headers will be played next weekend, November 23 and 24.
Men’s SV.League 2024-2025 7th leg:
Nov 23, 13:05 local (04:35 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Tokyo Great Bears
Nov 23, 13:35 local (04:35 UTC): Voreas Hokkaido v Nagano Tridents
Nov 23, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): Hiroshima Thunders v Wolfdogs Nagoya
Nov 23, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Suntory Sunbirds Osaka
Nov 24, 13:05 local (04:35 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Tokyo Great Bears
Nov 24, 13:05 local (04:05 UTC): Hiroshima Thunders v Wolfdogs Nagoya
Nov 24, 13:10 local (04:10 UTC): Voreas Hokkaido v Nagano Tridents
Nov 24, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Suntory Sunbirds Osaka
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