Shinsegae Ascended to the Throne

The final winner was Shinsegae Coolcat.

The defending champion Shinsegae grabbed its career third triumph trophy, winning a dramatic come-from-behind victory 68-65 over Hyundai Hyperion in the championship round game five of the 2001 WKBL at Changchung Gymnasium. The prize money is 30 million won.

Jung Sun-Min, who led the team`s victory with 25 points in spite of her ankle injury, was elected as a MVP, proving herself that she is the best player in women`s basketball.

Tied at 2-2 to reach the final game in the best of five game series, two rivals decided the direction of the victory just 8 seconds before the end of game.

Maintaining the close lead through the game, Hyundai enlarged the lead to 46-35 with the points by Center Kang Ji-Sook (1m 98, 24 points) who unexpectedly played an active part, taking advantage of the Shinsegae`s errors at the beginning of third quarter. Hyundai seemed to shake off the chase of Shinsegae.

However, Shisegae has never given up. Shinsegae hanged on to capture Hyundai, and prepared the footstep to turn the destiny by narrowing the lead within 4 points (49-53), when the third quarter ended.

It was 24.4 seconds before the end of game that the pendulum of victory began to tilt toward Shinsegae. Shinsegae obtained a free throw from the illegal defense of Hyundai Kang Ji-Sook in a critical moment tying at 65-65. After Jung Sun-Min made a free throw in such a tense situation, Shinsegae began to pass around the ball to spend the 24-second time clock. At the moment, Hyundai Jung Yoon-Sook committed a foul to save the time, but Shinsegae made two free throws.

Just 8 seconds remained for Hyundai, led by 3 points. However, Hyundai failed to make things happen, and finally knelt down. As Shinsegae Jang Sun-Hyung intercepted Park Myung-Ae`s pass aiming at Hyundai`s best three-point shooter Kim Young-Ok and embraced it in her arms, the game-ending buzzer sounded and a gun salute was fired in the victory of Shinsegae.

Kim Sang-Ho hyangsan@donga.com