2014/15 🇯🇵 Denso vs Toray 🇯🇵 🏐 Women Volleyball 🏐 Vleague Division 1

2012-2017 Hisamitsu was the queen in Japan V1 league. Led by 80-90s former national team player aka most talented setter Kumi Nakada as head coach. The team comprised mainly by national team players including Risa Shinnabe, Miyu Nagaoka, Yuki Ishii, Nana Iwasaka, Maiko Kano etc
V.league 1 (Japan) held during Oct-Apr (most of the time) with 8 teams participated. 8 teams played round robin 3 times and top rank team will progress to play in next phase to decide the champion. Pre- 2012 was Toray dynasty while 2012-2017 was Hisamitsu dynasty. In 2014/15 season, final ranking was (1) NEC, (2) Hisamitsu, (3) Ageo, (4) Okayama, (5) Toray, (6) Hitachi, (7) Denso, (8) Toyota
Individual awards :
MVP Akari Oumi
Best Scorer Croatia Mia Jerkov
Best Server USA Kelly Murphy
Best Digger Risa Shinnabe
Best Receiver Risa Shinnabe
Best Opposite Lauren Paolini
Best Middle Blocker Erika Araki , Haruyo Shimamura
Best Outside Hitter Risa Shinnabe, Akari Oumi
Best Setter Kaname Yamaguchi
Best Libero Sayaka Iwasaki
Post-Match Commentary :
Denso with many national team members this season. #10 Yuko Sano (35yo, 1.59m) the best libero in the world, #8 Kaori Inoue (32yo, 1.82m) the best middle blocker in Japan national team 2010, #15 Yurie Nabeya (21yo, 1.76m) in national team during 2015-19, #88 Mia Jerkov (32yo, 1.92m) the Croatian player were the lineup player in this match. The composition of the team was very balanced. Toray rank the 3rd in previous season. Their legendary player #3 Kimura Saori (28yo, 1.85m) finished her Turkish league journey and back to V-league. Her opposite was #2 Arisa Takada (27yo, 1.75m). #4 Saori Sakoda (27yo, 1.75m) played as position 2 in the whole season. With Saori returned, Toray was supposed stronger but the fact was not. Saori level of standard had been dropping since 2013. In Toray, her role mainly as receiver and main attack point went to #4 Sakoda.
In this match, #4 Sakoda attacks got block always by Denso. Toray used young setter but the key problem the 3 main spiker #2, #3 & #4 getting old and no reliable replacement to them. One match good but one match bad happened frequently in this season. Denso used their foreign player along with Sano amazing defence to defeat Toray.