Woori Card defeated defending champion Korean Air after a 165-minute battle, the longest in the league’s history, to extend its winning streak to four games to open the season.
Woori Card defeated Korean Air 3-2 (13-25, 32-34, 32-30, 25-18, 17-15) in straight sets in their Dodram 2023-2024 V-League Men’s home match at Jangchung Gymnasium in Seoul on Friday.
With the win, 현금홀덤사이트 Woori Card consolidated its position at the top of the standings with four wins (11 points), while Korean Air started the season with two straight losses after one win.
With the win, Woori Card head coach Shin Young-cheol reached 277 career wins (214 losses), surpassing former Samsung Fire head coach Shin Chi-yong for the most wins by a professional volleyball coach (276).
It was literally a dramatic victory. URICAD dropped the first set easily, and then came back to win the second set after a whopping nine deuce battles. At 24-22, Woori looked to have easily tied the set, but back-to-back errors put him in deuce. At 32-32, a missed attack by Jung Jeong-yong was followed by an unforced error by foreign player Matei Kok.
Down 0-2 in the set, Urikhardt struggled in the third set. After a seesaw game, he was back in a deuce battle. Urikhard did not give up. He persevered and after seven deuce games, he managed to take the third set. At 29-30, Matej scored three consecutive points with a backhand attack from Kim, an open attack from Kim Ji-han, and a backhand attack from Matej.
With the momentum in their favor, the Cards took the fourth set 25-18 to force a fifth and final set. It was a nail-biter. At 14-13, Urikad was back in deuce when Matei’s serve hit the net. The teams exchanged a point each, and at 15-15, Matei’s backhanded attack put him back on top. WooriCard ended the long game at 16-15, with Han blocking an attack from the other team’s Asian quarterback, Mark Espejo (real name Espejo).
Matei finished with a whopping 47 points, while Kim Ji-han chipped in with 20. For Korean Air, Lincoln had 23 points, Kwak Seung-seok had 17, and Jeong Jung-yong had 14.
In the women’s match at Suwon Gymnasium, home team Hyundai E&C got a big performance from Yang Hyo-jin to defeat Korea Expressway Corporation in straight sets 3-1 (19-25, 25-21, 25-23, 25-22) to improve to 3-1 with 10 points.
Korea Expressway Corporation dropped its third straight match after the opening day to fall out of the top six.
Hyundai E&C struggled to close out the match in the fourth set. HMC scored four straight points at 20-16 to tie the score at 20-20, but Yang Hyo-jin hit back-to-back center aces to put the brakes on Korea Expressway’s comeback.
At 23-21, Yang scored again with another center kill, and at 24-22, Moma Vasoco Letizia (nee Moma) finished off the attack to end the match. Yang added four blocks to her team-high 23 points on the night. Moma chipped in with 22 points, while Kim Joo-hyang added 11 points in the win.