They were smiling before the All-Star break, but they couldn’t smile in the post-break meeting.
GS Caltex suffered a 0-3 (20-25, 19-25, 24-26) set score defeat against Heungkuk Life in the fifth round of the Dodram 2023-2024 V-League Women’s Division at Jangchung Gymnasium on February 2.
Foreign opposite spiker Silva did her part with 22 points (56.41% attack percentage), but the offense was not the problem.
“Overall, the atmosphere of Heungkuk Life seems to have improved,” said coach Cha Sang-hyun after the game. Before the All-Star break, 안전 토토사이트 GS Caltex won the fourth-round matchup on March 17 with a set score of 3-1.
Silva exploded for 37 points, while Kang So-hwi chipped in with 21. After the All-Star break, Heungkuk Life switched to a foreign player.
On March 22, Heungkuk Life announced, “We finalized the contract with Yelena Mrazenovic (registered name Yelena), who accompanied us for the past two seasons, and signed Willow Johnson, an American national who played in the American Professional League Athletic Unlimited.”
After graduating from the University of Oregon in 2020, Willow played as an opposite spiker in the U.S. Pro League in the 2020-2021 season with Turkkiye Nirupert Belediyespor.
“Willow participated in the Korean Professional Volleyball Women’s Foreign Player Tryout in May last year and made a strong impression with her hitting and blocking, using her height of 191 centimeters,” Heungkuk Life said in introducing the new member.
GS Caltex had to deal with a new foreign attacker, Willow. If GS Caltex was focused on stopping Kim Yeon-kyung and Reina, they couldn’t stop Willow’s attack. One blocker wasn’t enough. Willow scored points diagonally and in the corners of the court with one blocker.
GS Caltex was shaken. The defense was shaky and the offense couldn’t connect. Coach Cha lamented, “There were too many unrecorded errors, such as serving errors and receiving positions.”
GS Caltex played their first game of the fifth round 16 days after their fourth round match against Heungkuk Life. However, Cha said, “It’s an excuse. We played a tight game in the first set,” Cha said.
Before the match, Cha said, “I had a lot of meetings with the players. I said, “Let’s try to hold on in various ways. We have some advantages and some disadvantages, but even if we lose, we have to get one point.” However, things didn’t go his way.
“I was disappointed that I made a mistake when it mattered,” Cha said repeatedly. Heungkuk Sinsaeng had 19 errors in the game, more than GS Caltex’s 13. However, as Cha said, there were many invisible mistakes in the players’ movements such as receiving and serving. “We can be caught at any time, and we can be caught. We have a lot of games left. We can’t let our guard down. We don’t know how the first and second place fights will go,” he emphasized.