FC Tokyo dropped its fourth straight game, falling to Sakai, 22-25, 19-25, 25-21, 20-25, in the 2021-22 V.League Division 1 men’s tournament, Wednesday at the Nippon Steel Sakai Gymnasium.
Despite playing off the bench, Marck Espejo still managed to get 12 points founded on nine attacks and three kill blocks.
This is the Filipino import’s first game in double figures since February 5 when he tallied 16 points against Bryan Bagunas’ Oita Miyoshi.
Sharone Vernon-Evans made a living at the service line with three aces to go with 15 attacks and a block for 19 points in the Blazers’ win.
Naoya Takano, on the other hand, dominated the net with four blocks and 12 kills for 16 points.
Yoshihiko Matsumoto also chipped in 13 points on a hyper-efficient 13-of-15 spiking rate, a high 86.7 percent.
Sakai tied Panasonic for third seed with identical 24-10 records, but the latter has the tiebreaker with 74 points compared to the former’s 72.
Jonas Kvalen led FC Tokyo anew with 18 points while Yuma Nagatomo supplied 11 points, all from spikes.
FC Tokyo dropped to 9-25 in its last season of participation in the league.
Espejo and FC Tokyo will conclude their V.League franchise history this weekend with back-to-back games against JT Thunders.
