“We didn’t really have a game plan”
KGC Ginseng Corporation and Pepper Savings Bank faced off in Group A of the 2023 Gumi Dodram Cup Professional Volleyball Competition at Park Jung-hee Gymnasium in Gumi on the 2nd. KGC Ginseng Corporation needed to win the match to advance to the semifinals, but they fell behind heavily in the first set.
온라인바카라With a huge gap in the score, KGC Ginseng head coach Ko Hee-jin, who called the second play of the first set, shouted “Run fast!” without giving any instructions to the players. The players, who had returned from the court to the bench, ran around the back of the court and then re-entered the court.
After losing the first set 14-25, KGC Ginseng changed its performance 180 degrees in the second set. The center of the court guarded by Park Eun-jin and Jung Ho-young blocked the Pepper Savings Bank attack, while the side attacks of Lee Sun-woo as an outside spiker and Ko Eui-jeong as an outside hitter were also on fire.
With a 10-5 advantage in blocks and a 7-3 lead in service points, KGC Ginseng more than doubled its offensive success rate from just 20.69% in the first set to 41.67% by the end of the match. With the awakening of the players, KGC Ginseng did not allow Pepper Savings Bank to score more than 20 points in each set in sets 2-4, winning the match 3-1 (14-25 25-10 25-18 25-19).
With a 2-1 record after three group matches, KGC Insam will now face a semifinal match between Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Doro Engineering & Construction. The team will have to settle for goal difference after beating Hyundai E&C 3-0, but they have the advantage after winning by a large margin on the day.
Even though the semifinals are within reach, coach Seung-Jang Ko was unhappy with the excessive nervousness of his players after the game. “It was a game where we won but felt that we lacked a lot,” he said. It was a game where we felt we had a lot to work on,” he said.
When asked about specific areas of deficiency, Ko said, “There were a lot of forgetfulness in our warm-ups. I thought I had changed with the training, but when I came to the stadium, the habit appeared again. We need to work on this part of our game.”
When asked about his instruction to the players to run in the second halftime of the first set, he said, “The players were so nervous that their feet were not falling, and I thought that if this continued, it would be like the first game, so I gave that instruction. And at that point, there was no game plan. I just wanted them to run a little bit and get their feet off the ground.”
The players seemed to understand their coach’s unusual game plan. Park Eun-jin, who had 15 points, including three blocks, said, “After the first set, we said to each other, ‘We’re not playing the volleyball we were playing. Let’s relax and play enjoyable volleyball,'” Park said. “I think the coach gave that instruction to reduce our tension. Thanks to that, we were able to catch our breath.” Lee Sun-woo also said, “The tension made us more nervous, which made us shrink. After the first set, we made up our minds to start from the beginning again.”