Marvelous, Arrows and Red Rockets one step closer to V. League Final Round

Ranked first, second and third in the standings, the JT Marvelous, the Toray Arrows and NEC Red Rockets all had perfect weekends in the Japanese V. League and are now closer to qualifying for the tournament’s Final Round, which will take place from April 9-16.

The top three teams in the regular season will make it to the deciding stage of the tournament. The Marvelous, with 68 points (23 wins, five losses), the Arrows, with 67 (22 wins, six losses), and the Red Rockets, with 64 (21 wins, eight losses), are at least two wins clear of the next best ranked team, fourth-placed Hisamitsu Springs, who have 59 points (19 wins, eight losses). Each team will play a total of 33 matches in the regular season.

League leaders and defending champions Marvelous played just once this weekend and got the job done in style, securing a straight-set (25-21, 25-21, 25-17) victory against the Saitama Ageo Medics on Saturday.

Coming from a mid-week five-set victory against the Springs, the Marvelous benefited from a productive performance by American Olympic champion opposite Annie Drews, who delivered a match-high 19 points (17 kills, one ace, one block) to help her team come out on top.

“I thought it was a really good match for us,” Drews said at the end. “We executed our game plan very well. We had a really long match on Wednesday and I was nervous that we could come into the weekend still thinking about that match. But we did a very good job with clearing our minds and approaching this match the way we should.”

The second-placed Arrows had a rockier road but also collected all six points in play in their two matches. The four-time national champions were perfect on Saturday, dominating the Kurobe Aqua Fairies to a 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-19) win, and were pushed to four sets (25-22, 25-22, 22-25, 26-24) on Sunday, but still beat the Toyota Auto Body Queenseis.

Jana Kulan and Mayu Ishikawa were the team’s most productive players in both matches as the towering Azeri opposite registered 21 (19 kills, one ace, one block) and 29 points (25 kills, three aces, three blocks, one ace) respectively, while the Japanese outside hitter and Tokyo Olympian added 16 (14 kills, one ace, one block) on Saturday and 27 (23 kills, four blocks) on Sunday.

The Red Rockets got clean wins in both of their matches, downing the Denso Airybees 3-0 (25-16, 25-22, 25-15) on Saturday and securing another sweep (25-21, 25-14, 25-18) against the PFU Blue Cats on Sunday.

American outside hitter Sarah Wilhite, a three-time Volleyball Nations League winner with her country’s national team, was the Red Rockets’ main offensive weapon in both matches, tallying 18 points (17 kills, one block) against the Airybees and 21 (18 kills, two aces, one block) in the encounter with the Blue Cats.

The Red Rockets will have another opportunity to further improve their position on Monday, when they play against the Airybees again.

Another highlight of the weekend in Japan was the match on Saturday reuniting the Queenseis and the Victorina Himeji. The match had two players crossing the 30-point mark in Dutch outside hitter Celeste Plak, who scored 33 (29 kills, two blocks, two aces), and American outside hitter and Olympic champion Kelsey Robinson, who delivered 32 (30 kills, one block, one ace) and led the Queenseis to a 3-1 (18-25, 25-22, 25-22, 26-24) win.

Three mid-week matches are set to take place in the V. League during the week, ahead of next weekend’s full set of matches.