Heungkuk Life snapped Pepper Savings Bank’s 23-game losing streak and reclaimed the lead for the first time in 67 days.
Heungkuk Life defeated Pepper Savings Bank 3-1 (25:14/22:25/25:16/25:15) in straight sets in the Dodram 2023-2024 V League Women’s Division match at Samsan World Gymnasium in Incheon on Tuesday. With six wins in five rounds, Heungkuk Life (24 points) is tied with Hyundai E&C (22 points) with the same number of wins, but ahead of them in the number of victories, and has been at the top of the leaderboard for 67 days since Dec. 15 last year.
Pepper Savings Bank (8-2-28) extended its longest losing streak in the V-League Women’s Division to 23 games. The longest losing streak in a single season in the V-League for both men’s and women’s divisions combined is 25 games, which has been set twice by the Korea Electric Power. The longest losing streak that stretches into the next season is 27 games.
Heungkuk Life was led by 23 points from Reina Tokoku, 18 points from Kim Yeon-kyung and 12 points from Willow Johnson, who returned from a knee injury. Setter Kim Da-sol also shined on offense with seven points, including five service points.
Pepper Savings Bank was lethargic from the first set. They only managed to pull within one point after Heungkuk Life scored five straight points. Pepper Savings Bank had a 0 percent receiving efficiency and six errors in the first set.
Pepper Savings Bank tied the game in the second set behind Yasmin Bedardt (real name Yasmin), who scored 12 points, but that was as close as they would get.
Heungkuk Life brought in Willow in the third set to provide additional height. Willow, who was unable to play against Hyundai E&C on March 15 due to a knee ligament injury, scored eight points without committing an error in the third set alone. In the fourth set, Heungkuk Life sealed the victory with an evenly matched performance from the “triangle squadron” of Reina (8 points), Kim Yeon-kyung (5 points), and Willow (4 points).
Traditional rivals Samsung Fire and Hyundai Capital met at the Yugwansoon Gymnasium in Cheonan, and after 2:35 full sets, Samsung Fire won 3-2 (25:22/15:25/25:22/18:25/16:14). Samsung Fire (17-13) tied KEPCO (15-14) with 44 points, but moved up from fifth to fourth place due to their superior win total. Sixth-ranked Hyundai Capital (41∙13∙17) added one point. They are three points behind fourth-place Samsung Fire and fifth-place KEPCO.
Samsung Fire closed out the match at 14-14 in the fifth set with an open attack by Kim Jung-ho and a block by Son Tae-hoon. Yosvani Hernandez (real name Yosvani) had 24 points, Kim Woo-jin had 16 points and Kim Jung-ho had 15 points. For Hyundai Capital, Heo Soo-bong scored a game-high 29 points, but it was not enough to prevent his team from losing.