Osaka teams take SV.League semifinal spots

The last leg of the 2024-2025 men’s Daido Life SV.League regular season formatted the brackets for the playoffs, which will start on Friday, and determined that Osaka Bluteon and Suntory Sunbirds Osaka, the top-ranked teams in the standings, will advance directly to the semifinals.

The Osaka rivals will get to watch from the sidelines the league’s two quarterfinal duels, which will have third-placed Wolfdogs Nagoya facing sixth-placed Hiroshima Thunders and fourth-placed JTEKT Stings Aichi meeting fifth-placed Tokyo Great Bears.

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Bluteon entered the last week of the regular season in first place and they confirmed the top spot ahead of the start of the playoffs with a pair of home wins against the Toray Arrows Shizuoka. On Saturday, the league leaders won 3-1 (23-25, 25-17, 25-15, 25-20) with Cuban outside hitter Miguel Ángel López delivering 21 points (18 kills, two blocks, one ace).

On Sunday, the home team had to work even harder to win 3-2 (28-30, 25-23, 25-22, 22-25, 15-13) and end the regular season with a campaign of 37 wins and seven losses. This time, Japanese star opposite Yuji Nishida led the way with 29 points (27 kills, one block, one ace).

“The regular season has been great, including these last two matches,” said French head coach Laurent Tillie. “I’m very happy that we were able to finish the regular season in first place, but the real challenge is about to start now.”

Suntory, who depended on Bluteon dropping matches against Toray over the weekend to have a chance of moving up to first place, had to settle for second, but still managed to secure a direct spot in the semifinals with their campaign of 36 wins and eight losses, which placed above Nagoya (35-9).

They completed their regular season campaign with a pair of road wins over VC Nagano Tridents, prevailing 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-20) on Saturday and getting another sweep (25-20, 25-23, 25-22) on Sunday and will enter the playoffs in a 16-match winning streak.

The last week of the regular season also had a pair of encounters involving two teams that will not appear in the playoffs, with bottom-placed Voreas Hokkaido topping Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers on both occasions. They triumphed 3-2 (19-25, 25-22, 25-27, 25-20, 15-11) on Saturday and came out on top after five sets (23-25, 25-20, 20-25, 25-20, 16-14) again on Sunday.

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