75th All-Japan High School Championship 2023 (Jan 4–8)

Furukawa running away with the Tie Break

Congratulations to the Furukawa Girls

Akane Abe and Ayaka Minamidate really stepped on it in the Tie Break. I imagine they will both go to Uni. The short girls usually do. It's four more years of kickin' ass at volleyball for them. Not sure what Alondra Tapia will do. She has some agreement to play in V.League:

"Tapia Cruz agrees to play with a Japanese League contracting team during the 2023, 2024 and 2025 seasons under conditions to be discussed with their home federation"

but I don't think it's carved in stone

Seiei was in ALL CAPS when I met it at volleybox. I always assumed it was the initials of something. Apparently not. Sorry Seiei

No direct quote but this vbm article says Iiyama says she plans to go to college

Most Valuable Player Award

Alondra Tapia (Furukawa Gakuen)

Best Libero Award

Luna Kitajima (Furukawa Gakuen)

Outstanding Player Award

Alondra Tapia (Furukawa) MB

Akane Abe (Furukawa) OH

Ayane Kitamado (Seiei (SAGA)) MB/OP

Haruna Iwaki (Seiei) MB

Ayumu Harashima (Shin'ai Girls (NEC)) MB/OP

Amika Tokumoto (Kinrankai (Hitachi)) Libero

[Best Smile Award]

Seiei *Sent to one team each for men and women enjoying the game

Source

Final Stat Sheet

Japanese Source

These things are always a little tough to decipher but this sounds like Tapia Cruz is going to university and then ...

Quote

After graduating from high school, she had a variety of choices: She could stay in Japan or return to her home country. Even so, she decided to go on to a Japanese university. I still want to learn many things in Japan. I want to be the best foreigner on a different team. I will do my best to improve my Japanese!　I want to be the best foreigner in different teams. The great player who never spared no effort has set his sights on her next dream.

Yahoo

Final Results and Awards

Individual Awards

FINAL

Semifinals

Quarterfinals

Yahoo says Emily Iiyama is going to Tokai Mermaids along with Higashi setter Mirei Samura and MB Mei Kato

Quote from volleyb

That’s huge. Mei Kato is also good!

I wonder what position she will play, MB or OP? Tokai's got that 1st year (169cm) OP Urara Yamamoto who won the Spiker Award, and two good OHs in Ameze and Haruko Sasaki, but their setter and libero graduated. That's gonna be a little blow to the system. I can't remember another setter ever coming on court for even a dub sub

vbm says:

"Tapia was nominated for the best player award. Tapia said, "After graduating, I want to go to a Japanese university (the name of the university is undisclosed) and aim to obtain a physical education teacher's license, while also playing for the Dominican Republic national team." Kumagai and Abe are also planning to go to the same university, so he said with a smile, "I'm looking forward to seeing you at university."

Quote from brahmin

Great idea, but is she going to be playing in the summer while in school? Let alone flying all over the planet from Japan.

Waseda has sports sciences for undergrad, but if they really want to be teaching, Kanoya (city of the Nittaidai) would be it

I don't know how the Uni calendar works . We have "summer vacation". It seems Japan is different where the school year starts in April, right? She could play Spring Uni-league, gosh knows what she does over the summer with DOM NT, which would likely also butt into Autumn League , but she should be okay for All-Japan in December

I was thinking NIFS or NSSU. Not familiar with Waseda

There appears to be a bit of a kerfuffle about Shujitsu getting pulled from the tournament

Shujitsu's [chance for] three consecutive championships in the Spring High School Volleyball Tournament were destroyed by "stubborn refusal to present test results".

On January 5, the first game of the 75th All Japan Volleyball High School Championships, Shujitsu High School was forced to sit out the tournament after testing "positive" for the new type of coronavirus antigen. However, later, the results of a PCR test conducted by the school at its own hospital revealed that the player in question had tested "negative".

Yahoo

Quote

Director Nishihata appealed to us as follows:

They are not the kind of players who would let something like this stop them from moving forward," she said. But I still have some regrets. Some people say that we are 'spoiled because we couldn't make it to the tournament', but if the inspection had been conducted in a legitimate manner, we would have been satisfied and returned to Okayama. We are by no means trying to pick a fight with the Spring High School Volleyball Office.

The players' lives are on the line, and the Office has done something that has caused them emotional trauma. If the Spring High School Volleyball Office does not take this opportunity to change, we will not be rewarded for what has happened this time

Quote from brahmin

Japan is really one of the least risk averse countries in the world and if you can’t see that within your own country, I don’t know what to tell you.

that switch to second person confuses me

but "Japan is really one of the least risk averse countries in the world" ... really? They seem scared of everything

I think the kerfuffle is less about "You should have let us play after the negative results" ... argument, and more about how the Office has/had communicated with the team. In that article the journalist lays out how many times they have asked for comment and the Office has played sneaky and evasive--which , to me , means their ducks are not in a row

But , I guess , it's hard not to think about this without thinking Shujitsu should have been given (was asking for?) special treatment--a second chance-- because they were reigning champions? Which isn't right. But given the stakes ... and you know how much this tournament means to these kids ... I would think a positive antigen test would immediately require a PCR test. I can't tell if that's Shujitsu's point in all this tho

Bottom line: Poor Shujitsu They win the damn thing twice with no spectators and then this

Watching Shujitsu hold hands, swing their arms and sing their school song to an empty arena after winning the damn thing was the saddest thing I've seen in volleyball