Nishida and Conte Make History with 30+ Point Outputs in Same Match

  0 Braden Keith | September 19th, 2018 | Asian Volleyball, International Volleyball, News, South American Volleyball

For the first time since rally scoring was introduced at the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championships in 2002, two players have hit the 30-point mark in the same match.

In Wednesday’s high-intensity preliminary round showdown between Argentina and Japan, vying for the last spot in the 2nd round of the tournament, Japan won 3-2; but Argentina only needed 2 sets to advance and eliminate the Japanese.

For the victorious Japanese, Yuji Nishida became the youngest player to ever pull off the feat by scoring 30 points at 18 years, 7 months, and 20 days old. The previous youngest was Iran’s Amir Ghafour, who scored 30 points against Serbia in 2014 at 23 years, 3 months, and 9 days old. Ghafour is still active in the Iranian National Team. Nishida stands only 6’1″ (186cm) tall, which is well shorter than the average international-caliber opposite, but makes up for it with an incredible leap, as show in the video below:

For Argentina, it was the veteran Facundo Conte who pulled off the feat, hitting 30-for-36 (83.33%) and adding 2 aces and a block to finish the match with 33 points – the 4th-highest total in history. His was also the highest hitting percentage and fewest swings needed to clear the 30-point barrier. He was only hitting 42% in the tournament coming into the match, and had only 43 points (and just 25 kills) in the team’s first 4 matches combined before Tuesday.

Conte also becomes the first South American player to score 30-points-or-more in a World Championship match (and just the 3rd from the western hemisphere).

So far, 3 players at this year’s championship have cleared the 30-point barrier, which is already more than did so in 2002 or 2010, but still less than 2006 and 2014.

All Time 30+ Point Performances, World Championship History

  1. 38 – Hector Soto, PUR, 2006 (vs. Argentina, 2006) – 5 sets – win
  2. 37 – Maurice Torres, PUR, 2018 (vs. Finland, 2018) – 5 sets – loss
  3. 36 – Hector Soto, PUR (vs. Tunisia, 2006) – 5 sets – loss
  4. 33 – Facundo Conte, ARG (vs. Japan, 2018) – 5 sets – loss
  5. 32 – Jan Stokr, CZE (vs. Germany, 2006) – 4 sets – win
  6. 31 – Yuan Zhi, CHN (vs. Egypt, 2014) – 4 sets – win
  7. 31 – Mariusz Walzly, POL (vs. Brazil, 2014) – 5 sets – win
  8. 30 – Hector Soto, PUR (vs. Japan, 2006) – 4 sets – loss
  9. 30 – Hector Soto, PUR (vs. Canada, 2006) – 4 sets – loss
  10. 30 – Ivan Miljkovic, SRB (vs. Cuba, 2010) – 4 sets – loss
  11. 30 – Iban Perez, ESP (vs. Russia, 2010) – 5 sets – win
  12. 30 – Amir Ghafour, IRI (vs. Serbia, 2014) – 5 sets – win
  13. 30 – Yuan Zhi, CHN (vs. Mexico, 2014) – 4 sets – win
  14. 30 – Ivan Mijkovic, SRB (vs. Korea, 2014) – 4 sets – win
  15. 30 – Yuji Nishida, Japan (vs. Argentina, 2018) – 5 sets – win

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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