Men’s professional volleyball team OK Financial Group defeated Japanese invitee Panasonic in the semifinals of the Kobo Cup. OK Financial will play the final against Samsung Fire, who defeated Korean Air.
OK Financial Group won 3-2 (32-30 15-25 30-32 25-22 15-9) against Panasonic in the men’s semifinals of the 2023 Gumi Dodram Cup Professional Volleyball Tournament at Park Jung-hee Gymnasium in Gumi, Gyeongbuk, on Wednesday afternoon.
The finalist will be looking to win its first Cup title. OK Financial reached the Kobo Cup final in 2015, 2019, and 2021, but finished as runners-up. The final between Samsung Fire and OK Finance will take place on March 13 at 1:30 p.m. KST.
Panasonic, which reached the semifinals with three straight wins in the group stage, was looking to become the first invitational team to reach the Kobo Cup final, but fell short. No invitational or foreign team has ever reached the final of the Kobo Cup, which began in 2006.
OK Finance’s Shin Jong-jin led the way with 31 points. Chae-hwan Chae added 15 points and Lee Jin-seong 12 points.
For Panasonic, Yuga Tarumi scored 31 points and Kunihiro Shimizu added 20 points.
OK Financial Group took the first set in a deuce tiebreaker. At 30-30, Shin Shin-jin pulled off a difficult back-attack before Kwak Myung-woo intercepted a quick-opening attack from Nakamoto Kenyu to end the set.
Set 2 belonged to Panasonic. Panasonic took an early lead and easily won the set thanks to three consecutive spike serves from Kenyu Nakamoto.
The third set was also a deuce battle. At 30-30, Kenyu Nakamoto scored a quick opener before Yasunari Godama intercepted Shin’s back-attack to end the set.
At the end of the fourth set, Takahiko Imamura scored back-to-back open attacks to give Panasonic the first 20-point lead. OK Financial tied the score at 21-21 with back-to-back kills from Shin Shin-jin. A back-attack by Yuga Tarumi gave OK Financial a 22-21 lead. Chae Hwan scored the final quick-open attack to take the set.
With momentum on their side, OK Finance took a big lead in the fifth set. After a 6-0 run, OK Financial scored the first 10 points of the set with a 10-2 run. OK Financial held off Panasonic’s late rally to secure a spot in the final. 안전카지노사이트