Eventually, the final match was postponed to the final day. Hana Card and SK Rent-A-Car posted three wins and three losses overall in the PBA Team League final, and will determine the champion of this season’s final match on Wednesday.
SK Rent-a-Car won Game 5 of the ‘Welcome Savings Bank PBA Team League 2023-2024 Postseason’ final at Goyang KINTEX PBA Stadium in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do on the 26th with a set score of 4-2, but Hana Card avenged it with a 4-1 total score of 3-3 in Game 6.
SK Rent-a-Car won Game 5 first. In the first set, Eddie Lefens of Belgium and Kang Dong-gung of Vietnam won the game 11-5 in two innings, followed by Kang Ji-eun and Hida Aurier of Japan, who beat Kim Ga-young and Ayako Sakai of Japan 9-4 (five innings) in the second set.
Hana Card, however, did not back down. Murat Najee Choklu, the “Turkiye ace,” won in both sets. Choklu won the game with Lefence by 15-10 in eight innings in the third set, and in the fourth set, Choklu beat Kuhye and Hida by 9-3 (three innings) in harmony with Sakai. Set score tied at 2-2 with the score set.
SK Rent-A-Car won four games as the “Ganggang duo” took over Baton one after another. In the fifth set, Kang Dong-gung scored six high-runs to beat Shin 11-4 (8 innings) and in the sixth set, Kang Ji-eun beat Kim Ga-young 9-1 (5 innings) to win Game 5.
SK Rent-A-Car has just one win to win. Hana Card, which is facing a setback, has come up with measures to replace its starting lineup ahead of Game 6. Kim Byung-ho, who collaborated with Q. Nguyen in the first set, played in the seventh set, and placed Shin Jung-joo, who was in charge of the fifth set, in the first set. The result was accurate. In the fifth inning when Hana Card was leading 5-4, Q. Nguyen scored six finishing high runs to end the game 11-4. It was the first win in the first set of six final matches.
Following their winning momentum in the first set, Kim Ga-young and Sakai defeated Hida and Kang Ji-eun 9-3 in the second set as well. Notably, Kim Ga-young, who shook off her sluggish performance in Game 5, performed very well by sweeping eight points alone. In the third set of SK Rent-A-Car, Refence beat Q. Nguyen and recovered one set, but that was all for SK Rent-A-Car. In the fourth set mixed doubles, Choklu and Sakai defeated Gangdong Palace 9-6 (four innings), and in the fifth inning, Choklu beat Gangdong Palace 11-2 (five innings) to win the set score of 4-1.
As a result, the two teams, which faced three wins and three losses in the final round, will determine the champions of the season with the result of the final match (Game 7) at 8:30 p.m. on the 27th.
