Nishida drives Osaka to top of Japan’s SV.League table

With Yuji Nishida on fire, Osaka Bluteon claimed two victories over the weekend, enough to take over the first place in the Japanese men’s Daido Life SV.League table after the third leg of matches was completed on Saturday and Sunday. Previous leaders Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers suffered their first defeats of the season, beaten at home by JTEKT Stings Aichi with brilliant contributions from Kento Miyaura on both days of the double header. Tokyo Great Bears are on a roll with two more victories added to their streak, while Voreas Hokkaido celebrated their first win of the season.

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Osaka Bluteon produced two home wins over Wolfdogs Nagoya and climbed to the top of the current standings on a 5-1 win-loss record and 14 points. On Saturday, the two sides put up a five-set fight. After wasting a two-set advantage, the home team still managed to win the tie-breaker and the match, 3-2 (25-22, 25-23, 20-25, 16-25, 15-9). Star opposite Yuji Nishida contributed 26 points to the victory, including three kill blocks. His American teammate Thomas Jaeschke impressed with four aces to finish with 20 points. On the other side of the net, Nagoya’s Dutch opposite Nimir Abdel-Aziz hammered 24 points.

On Sunday, Wolfdogs took the lead after the first set, but Bluteon came back to claim the three points, 3-1 (22-25, 26-24, 25-23, 25-16). Nishida and Nimir “exchanged” three aces each to top the scorers’ chart of the match on 24 and 23 points, respectively. Osaka’s Cuban opposite Miguel Lopez raised as many as six kill blocks and also finished with 23 points. Nagoya are now in sixth place on 2-4 and 8.

“I'm very happy about our two wins this week,” Bluteon’s French head coach Laurent Tillie said right after the second match. “In the first set, Wolfdogs Nagoya's serves were strong and I felt it would be a tough match. However, I think the players were able to come back and win from a 0-1 deficit thanks to their high level of concentration. Today, the most important aspect was the mental aspect, and I think that was a good part of it.”

JTEKT Stings Aichi downed previous table leaders Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers twice to surpass them in the standings. Aichi are now second on 5-1 and 13, while Sakai are down to third on 4-2 and 12. In the first match of their double header at the Nippon Steel Sakai Gymnasium, the visitors hammered out a hard-fought 3-0 (29-27, 25-2, 25-23) shutout to hand the opponents their first loss of the season. In just three sets, opposite Kento Miyaura put away a match-high 25 points, including one ace and one kill block. His Canadian counterpart Sharone Vernon-Evans also led the home side with 25 points, including one ace and four kill blocks. Sunday’s battle was even fiercer, pushed to five sets, but Aichi won again, 3-2 (25-19, 25-27, 27-29, 25-14, 15-11). Miyaura put away a fantastic seven aces and topped the chart again on a 29-point total, while Vernon-Evans finished with 24 for Sakai.

Tokyo Great Bears climbed to fourth place on 4-2 and 11 after extending their winning streak to four games in row. Over the weekend, they defeated their opponents twice during their visit at Hiroshima Thunders. Saturday offered a five-set battle, in which the squad from the capital celebrated a 3-2 (24-26, 27-25, 18-25, 25-23, 15-13) victory. Portuguese outside hitter Alexandre Ferreira fired four aces and raised one kill block to lead the winners on a total of 26 points. However, two opponent players beat that with a match-high 27 points each. Brazilian opposite Felipe Roque also served four aces, while putting away two stuffs, and Cuban outside Oreol Camejo had three aces and a kill block. The close battle continued on Sunday, but this time Tokyo took home the full three points with a 3-1 (25-23, 25-17, 22-25, 29-27) win despite a remarkable 35-point match high from Felipe Roque. The winners were spearheaded by Alex Ferreira and Polish opposite Maciej Muzaj with 23 points each. Hiroshima dropped to eighth place on 2-4 and 5.

In the last match of the weekend, Voreas Hokkaido celebrated their first win of the season. The day before, on Saturday, their visitors Toray Arrows Shizuoka achieved a 3-1 (25-15, 23-25, 25-20, 26-24) victory with a 20-point match high from outside Daiki Yamada. On Sunday, however, Voreas got back at Toray Arrows, also in a four-set match. The home side claimed a 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 28-26, 25-23) win to improve to 1-5 and 4, but still at the bottom of the table, in 10^th place. Their Chinese opposite Chang Yu-Sheng was the best scorer of the match with 26 points. The team from Shizuoka are in seventh place on 2-4 and 7.

The fourth leg will offer a full set of five double headers from Saturday to Monday, November 2 to 4.

Men’s SV.League 2024-2025 4th leg:
Nov 2, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): Nagano Tridents v Wolfdogs Nagoya
Nov 2, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Toray Arrows Shizuoka
Nov 2, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): Hiroshima Thunders v Voreas Hokkaido
Nov 2, 15:05 local (06:05 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Osaka Bluteon
Nov 3, 13:05 local (04:05 UTC): Nagano Tridents v Wolfdogs Nagoya
Nov 3, 13:05 local (04:05 UTC): Hiroshima Thunders v Voreas Hokkaido
Nov 3, 13:05 local (04:05 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Osaka Bluteon
Nov 3, 14:05 local (05:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Toray Arrows Shizuoka
Nov 3, 19:05 local (10:05 UTC): Suntory Sunbirds Osaka v Tokyo Great Bears
Nov 4, 16:05 local (07:05 UTC): Suntory Sunbirds Osaka v Tokyo Great Bears

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