The Hyundai Capital men’s professional volleyball team has accumulated another victory. The team has won four consecutive matches since its in-season head coach change.
The team won the Dodram 2023-2024 V-League Round 4 match against KB Insurance in Uijeongbu Gymnasium on Thursday with a set score of 3-0 (25-21 26-24 27-25). Ahmed Iqbairi (registered name Ahmed-200cm) and Heo Soo-bong (195cm) scored 21 points each, while triple-team member Jeon Kwang-in (194cm) supported the offense with 11 points.
Hyundai Capital acting head coach Jin Soon-ki first reflected on his disappointment after the game. “KB Sonbo did a good job of analyzing the game. It was a game where we were dragged around by their game plan.”
Although Hyundai Capital won the shutout victory, it was not an overwhelming performance when looking at each set. Two of the three sets went down to deuce.
Acting head coach Jin regretted that “our preparation was not smooth.” “We talked a lot to the players about error management,” he said, “but positional errors, net touches, and other things happened during the game.” “As these situations accumulated, we did not play an easy game,” he recalled.
“We are not a complete team yet. We have a lot to work on,” he said, adding, “We need to keep our momentum going when our opponent loses momentum, and we didn’t.” “We will continue to improve,” he vowed.
However, he did not forget to praise his players for the victory. He mentioned setter Kim Myung-kwan (195 cm). “The setter is a difficult position,” Jin said, explaining that he has to make choices throughout the match and is judged rightly or wrongly.
“I told (Kim) Myung-kwan to play what he can do confidently, and when he did that on the pitch, he had good communication with the strikers,” he said. “He understands the opponent’s defensive position and chooses the direction of attack well,” he said, adding that he trusts Myung-kwan’s choices 100 percent.
With the win, Hyundai Capital improved to 8-13-1 (28 points) on the season. The team jumped one spot in the league standings from sixth to fifth. Acting head coach Jin recognizes this.
“Today’s win puts us in fifth place. The most important thing is the next game against Samsung Fire,” he said. “The battle for mid-table is fierce right now. If we keep up the good momentum, we might be able to play spring volleyball,” he said, but he was careful to add, “It might be a burden to tell the players.”
Hyundai Capital will try to make it five straight wins against traditional rival Samsung Fire on April 7. The match will be held at Chungmu Gymnasium in Daejeon, home of the Samsung Fire.