Samsunglife and Hyundai – “ I am the Queen!”

Samsunglife Insurance Pichumi and Hyundai Hyperion gained two consecutive victories and advanced to final game.

At 8th of August, For New Kukmin Bank Championship in 2002 Summer League of WKBL July, Samsunglife Insurance had the 2nd play-off game with Shinsegae Cool Cat at Yumju Sport Center in Kwangju. Samsunglife won the game with Byun Yun-ha(22 points, 3 shots for 3 pints)’s outer shot by 75-72.

Hyundai played with Woori Bank Hansae at Chuncheon Sport Center as an away game. At the end of the game, with Chun Ju-won’s distinguished play (9 points 4 assists), Hyundai won a come-from-behind victory by 53-51.

Samsunglife and Hyundai advanced to the final games together that day, and will play games as first 3 wins of 5 games for championship from 11th of August. Samsung and Hyundai played for final games of 1999 Summer League and 2000 Winter League, and Samsung won both of the championships.

# Samsunglife -Shinseagae

Samsunglife was 14 points behind Shinsaegae at the score 29-43 in the middle of the second quarters. The reason was simple. Lee Mi-sun(174 cm) who was the starting points of offense was blocked completely by Chang Sun-hyung(178cm) of forward of Shinsaegae. However, as Chang Sun-hyung’s movement became slow, Lee Mi-sun’s intercept and fast play came back.

For last 2 minutes and 38 seconds of the end of the second quarters, Kim Kye-ryung(11 points), Lee Mi-sun(15 points) and Smith(13 points) gained 10 points without losing even one point, and reduced the gap by 39-43.

In the third quarters, Samsung got off to a two points (58-56). In the game, the turning point was the early stage of the last quarters. Byun Yun-ha tried 3 points shots at 45 degree angle of the right side of the court, and succeeded all of them, so Samsung led by 67-60.

Chung Sun-min of Shinsaegae played very well and scored 24 points, but her colleagues were too slow.

#Hyundai-Woori Bank

All through the game, goal was dries up. Both of the teams have the characteristics of fast play, but in the game, they played extremely defensive game from the early stage and not allowed an opportunity for the opposite team to shot. So only free throw occurred frequently. However most of the players didn’t succeed the free throws; Woori Bank succeeded in 20 of 35 free throws and Hyundae succeeded in 6 of 11.

Because of goal drought, none of them was outdistance all the time. Until the last stage of the last quarters, the game was bored with the gap of the points of only 2 or 3 points.

Evenly-balanced game became inclined toward Hyundai by a veteran Chun Ju-won who made only 4 points until the last quarters. She led the team with mature experience. She received outer pass from her colleague Kweon Eun-jung and succeeded in 3 point shot immediate 6 seconds before the final buzz and turned the scores from 50-51 into 53-51.

Chang Jeon Sang-Ho Kim jeon@donga.com hyangsan@donga.com