I was wondering the same thing about Nabeya, but Denso prevailed over JT and takes the 3rd seat (over Toyota) by virtue of Total Set Points 42-41 vs 41-40. (They weren't trying to take the #2 seed from JT, that's out of range). Toyota did all they could, winning their last 6 in a row, but, alas. Denso's payback for the Empress Cup.
13:00 Ageo Medics v Hisamitsu Springs 0–3
13:00 NEC Red Rockets v Toyota Body Queens 1–3
15:00 JT Marvelous v Denso Airybees 1–3
15:00 Toray Arrows v Hitachi Rivale 1–3
Ageo v Hisamitsu: Didn't watch it, but I'm surprised Hisamitsu continued to play their NT players. Okay, Whoopdy Do! Hisamitsu (most likely) goes undefeated for the season. Congratulations
NEC v Toyota: Oh well. NEC, they let me down. They brought in Yanagita(OP) and Yamaguchi(S) midway in the first set and I thought that meant they wanted to win. They took the first set to overtime but lost it. Then they crushed it in Set 2=25-16. Then failure. Oh well With a win tonight (unlikely) against JT and a Toray loss against Hisamitsu, NEC can capture 5th place--which is only a teeny weeny bit less embarrassing than 6th place for the reigning champions.
JT v Denso: JT gave the starting spot back to Kitsui over mid-season pickup Meguro. Kitsui went 2/16. Oops! Brankica=24/75. Yawn. #1 Aika Akutagawa. Fact.=9/24, which is a lot of swings for a pipsqueak MB. She also had 5 blocks. I wonder if she'll marry me. We'll never know why Nabeya hardly played 0/0, but Sakamoto, Furst, and Marvel Comics Superhero Kudo had decent games. Sakamoto went 20/60 with a couple blocks and an ace. Kudo went 12/40 with 4 blocks and an ace. Furst was 11/15 with no errors and 4 blocks. I'm really happy for Denso. Beating JT without My Little Sweet Pea, Airi Tahara setting tells me they still got something. Definitely the feel good surprise team of the year. They played in the minors last year. Welcome back!
Toray v Hitachi: Haven't watched this one yet. Poor Toray. That's 4 losses in a row and they play Hisamitsu tonight. They looked so promising earlier in the year. Kurogo=12/40; only 3 service errors; reception was 53/31/9. I've expressed disappointment in Kurogo, but for a kid to come into the league at 19 years old and receive over 100 more serves than Yuki Ishii ... respect!
Tonight is the last night of the regular season:
13:00 Toray Arrows v Hisamitsu Springs
13:00 JT Marvelous v NEC Red Rockets
The only questions remaining are whether Hisamitsu remains undefeated for the year (likely) and who will end up in last place, NEC or Toray (likely NEC).
So it looks like it's going to be:
1 Hisamitsu Springs
2 JT Marvelous
3 Denso Airybees
4 Toyota Body Queens
5 Toray Arrows - 24pts
6 NEC Red Rockets
:
7 Ageo Medics
8 Hitachi Rivale