[14] Grade 11: IH National Tournament
The IH National Games, officially known as the National College Sports Games.
The annual volleyball competition has a fixed number of 56 participating schools for both men's and women's teams, with one school per prefecture, and an additional school for Tokyo and Hokkaido.
The tournament format is divided into a group stage and a knockout stage. The first three days are the group stage, with 56 teams divided into 14 groups, each containing four teams. Each group plays a single round-robin, and the top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage.
In the group stage, each team must play three matches.
The first day of the competition is the opening ceremony followed by the first group stage match.
Strong schools are usually divided into fourteen groups to avoid them meeting in the group stage, thus reducing the probability of them being eliminated unexpectedly after spending too much energy fighting each other in the early stages of the competition.
As for Heming Hall, the dark horse school that defeated the top 16, whether it was by accident that it caught the eye of the arrangers or simply because it was lucky enough, it was not placed in any of the strong school groups during the group stage, and was even placed in the first place of the 12th group.
The other opponents in the group were all ordinary universities in remote, unknown areas.
—For Tsurumikan, who made it to the national tournament on their first appearance and were extensively reported in Kyoto and featured in some national newspapers, these opponents were indeed not very famous.
Their abilities, like their reputation, were hardly surprising to the Hemingguan Men's Volleyball Team.
Even without Jin Chuchuan playing, the team easily won the three group matches in the first two days, with scores of 2-0, 2-0 and 2-1 respectively.
Heming Hall advanced to the round of 16 as the top team in their group.
The third day is the final day of the group stage, and also the first round of elimination matches to advance from 28 to 16. Four teams will be selected from the second-place teams in each group based on data analysis, and they will compete against each other to compete for the last two spots in the round of 16.
The matches that day had nothing to do with the already qualified Heming Hall.
The men's volleyball team members of Heming Hall did not stay in the venue to watch the game, but went to the volleyball hall to complete their pre-match training and stayed in the hotel to study their next opponent.
The Round of 16 roster will be released tonight, but IH's Round of 16 has always had a fixed pairing system.
In addition to the group avoidance rule and the regional avoidance rule, the pairing is directly carried over from the group list, for example, from group one to group two, group three to group four.
Therefore, it is highly likely that Tsurumeikan will play against Inarisaki High School in the adjacent group tomorrow.
The members of the Tsurumeikan Men's Volleyball Team gathered in Imadegawa's suite, where a videotape of Inarisaki's performance in the Hyogo Prefecture preliminaries was playing on the screen.
Why is he here?
Saotome clicked her tongue loudly in displeasure.
The person who was glared at by him a hundred and eighty times was Kaminari Rintaro.
As for why the character's name is here?
Of course, he was invited by Imadegawa, whom he had quickly become acquainted with in just a few days.
To figure out how to fight the present-day fox in front of the future fox...
How interesting!
The cranes of the evening leave Sichuan now.
Little Chubby Bird describes him as: "An evil human with a super perverse sense of humor."
Kakuna Rintaro slumped listlessly on the sofa next to Imadegawa, pulling the blanket from his perverted senior and covering his face to avoid the fierce glare from the unknown senior from Tsurumeikan.
fear--
He had no idea there would be so many people before he was invited by Imadegawa.
Although he wasn't socially anxious, suddenly joining a group of seniors in a "gathering" was a bit too much for Kaname, who never cared much about what others thought.
However, he's currently being held back by Imadegawa and can't leave even if he wanted to.
Aoyagi sat on the other side of Imadegawa and silently covered him with her own blanket.
After watching the videotape and briefly discussing tactics, everyone dispersed and returned to their rooms to study it on their own.
—Once the final sixteen list is officially released, everyone will gather again to further study and revise the tactical arrangements. Currently, it is just a preliminary discussion meeting.
"Isn't he leaving?" Saotome pressed down on Aoyagi's shoulder and glanced at Kakuna, who was sprawled on the sofa playing on his phone.
“We’re going out in a bit,” Imadekawa said.
His meaning was clear, and Saotome immediately understood—he was going to go out alone with this squinty-eyed man.
Saotome gritted her teeth: "Fine."
He pressed down on Aoyagi and left angrily.
After tidying up, Imadegawa said to the character who was lying down browsing the forum, "Let's go."
Jiaoming lazily sat up and put his phone in his pocket.
He hunched slightly, looking straight at Imadegawa: "Which volleyball court are we going to?"
Jin Chuchuan smoothed the ends of his hair: "Anything is fine."
So Kakunojo Imadegawa took him to the volleyball hall where he often practiced during the summer.
The two had been communicating online frequently during the few days since they met. Two days ago, Jin Chuchuan took him out to dinner after watching every single group match of the Heming Hall tournament.
With Imadegawa's completely natural behavior, Kakuna naturally became familiar with him.
Skipping the awkward period of getting along with friends, they seamlessly integrated into the atmosphere of longtime friends without any warning.
Now, when the two walk down the street, no one would guess that they have only known each other for less than a week.
Kakunami didn't seem to mind the way the senior members of the Crane Cry Hall were rejecting him.
As for Jiaoming, he has never cared about other people's opinions or views.
Kakuna led Imaichi into the volleyball hall with practiced ease.
Kakuna was very curious about Imadegawa's stationary sidespin serve, but Imadegawa hadn't played in the last two days, so Kakuna hadn't been able to see Imadegawa's performance.
During their online conversation, Imadegawa keenly noticed Kakuna's unintentional regret and used it as bait to lure Kakuna out.
After a brief warm-up, Imadegawa began serving.
Imadegawa weighed the yellow and blue volleyball in his hand.
The volleyballs used in junior high and high school matches are the same size, so the size and weight of the volleyball provided by the player is exactly the same as the one he uses in training.
However, although the specifications are the same, the volleyball models are different.
Thanks to the generous investment from Principal Xiaofeijiu, every training ball at Heming Hall is a Mikasa v200w model, while the volleyball in his hand at this moment is a Mikasa v300w model.
Imaichi gently tossed the volleyball up.
Kakuna stood to his side and slightly behind, staring intently and dissecting him.
The volleyball was gently passed to the slender boy in front of him.
Imaichi Kazukawa stretched his body backward.
...His center of gravity shifted backward.
Character name synchronous analysis.
The volleyball is falling.
Now, Chu Chuan raises his right arm and suddenly swings it forward.
The moment the volleyball hits his palm, his wrist snaps inward and his fingers flick slightly.
The volleyball flew through the air, crossed the net, and then suddenly changed direction, quickly veering to the left and crashing into the court.
...What a beautiful serve!
Jiaoming slightly raised his eyelids and opened his narrow eyes wide.
Imadegawa's movements are very small and extremely fast. He strikes the ball almost immediately after it lands at the optimal hitting point in his mind. It is difficult to see from his angle, and the opponent's view is easily interfered with.
The ball speed (dUyJ) wasn't fast enough, but its spin was enough to make up for it. With this ball, Imadegawa achieved the greatest spin gain with minimal loss of force.
Now, as he leaves Sichuan, he turns to look at the character's name.
"One more?"
"good."
The corner name picked up the ball.
Jin Chuchuan served several compound sidespin balls in a row.
Volleyball players are extremely familiar with the spin of the volleyball.
Among the various types of volleyball spin, sidespin, a lateral variation of topspin and backspin, is the least difficult and also the least threatening in actual combat. It doesn't rely on explosive power like a topspin serve, nor does it require the extremely high level of feel like a backspin serve; it only relies on wrist dexterity.
Unlike side topspin, side downspin, and reverse side spin, which are compound spins, they belong to the category of side spins but are at a higher level, making them far more difficult and threatening than ordinary spins.
Especially with reverse sidespin, the force generated by the reverse joint results in extremely low serve stability.
However, Imadegawa's serve stability is contrary to common sense. He is extremely skilled at controlling the spin of the volleyball, whether it is topspin, backspin or reverse sidespin.
Furthermore, Imadegawa can completely control the flight trajectory and landing point of the volleyball in these different types of serves.
From the angler's perspective, the three consecutive backspin serves landed almost identically.
It's the corner player's turn to serve.
The player first tried out several of Imadegawa's usual reverse sidespin shots.
Several shots were fired in a row, but they either lacked spin or went out of bounds.
The player quickly switched to attacking with a sidespin serve.
The sidespin serve is much easier to master. Although a few of them turned into pure topspin or pure sidespin, I was still able to control the spin and some of the balls landed in bounds.
Jiao Ming practiced the side topspin for a while.
Before being invited out by Imadegawa, he hadn't yet completed his serving quota in his daily summer training schedule, so now he could practice new serving techniques while making up for the training he was supposed to do.
Imaichi Kawai sat to the side playing on his phone, occasionally offering a few pointers on how to apply force to his wrist.
His training volume today was sufficient; continuing to train would only negatively impact his performance in tomorrow's match.
Why are you still teaching him?
The little chubby bird, unusually, didn't continue watching the melodramatic drama and followed the two as they left.
After silently observing the two of them interacting, Nuomi Tuanzi became somewhat puzzled.
"According to the storyline, Rintaro Kakuna will definitely go to Inarisaki in the future."
"Isn't this funding our rivals?"
Imadegawa Yuzuru typed rapidly on her phone, replying to the little chubby bird: "So what now?"
"I don't think I'll lose."
Little Chubby was still a little hesitant: "Inarizaki will be the top setter in high school next year, and in the storyline, Inarizaki won the bronze medal in both the 2011 IH National and Spring High National tournaments."
Imaichi Kawa straightened the coat draped over his legs and said calmly, "You said it yourself, it's third place."
"Our goal is a three-peat, do we really need to be so wary of the third-place finisher?"
"If you can't even beat the third-place team, how can you really win the championship?"
"Moreover," Imadegawa gestured with his eyes for the chubby little bird to look at the boy on the volleyball court.
"He's learning from me, learning the type of serve I know."
"Will the members of the Tsurumeikan club next year be unable to return my serve now?"
The little chubby bird nodded as if it understood but not quite.
Okay~
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Suna, don't take my pen!
This chapter was supposed to start with the fight between Inarisaki and the fox, but the fox snatched the pen away, sob sob. These two little darlings get along so well, I can't stop writing! The next chapter will definitely feature a fight!!!
Adding some personal interpretations: The IH process is quite complex, with things like seeded schools getting byes, etc. I've simplified everything into the group stage. Also, in recent years, the IH national tournament, except for the finals, has been a best-of-three format (I'm not sure about earlier times). In this article, I've simplified everything to a five-game format after the knockout stage (round of 16 and beyond), and a three-game format for the group stage.
The matches that are unrelated to the original school will be omitted as much as possible. The Kyoto qualifiers are the first appearance and need to be set up, so the match between the two schools is described in a personal setting.
After IH, I'll probably write about the national youth team training camp (the one Kageyama went to). The tentative list includes Ushijima, Tendo, Kitaro, and Shiro... I'm still undecided about the other members. (But I'm not quite sure how to write it, because I don't have much inspiration for this, but I really want to give Ushijima and Kitaro a shout-out ww)
P.S.: Although Kakuna is lazy, I personally think he has a passion for volleyball, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to another country for love (just kidding). So he is really curious about Kozuru's nine consecutive points with her stationary serve (especially the stationary serve → which saves energy and allows him to be lazy).
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