This season's women's volleyball championship (best-of-five, best-of-three) will be headlined by a matchup between best friends Yang Hyo-jin (34, Hyundai EC) and Kim Yeon-kyung (36, Heungkuk Life).

This will be Kim's seventh championship match and Yang's fifth, but it will be the first time they have faced each other.

The first time Heungkuk Life and Hyundai EC met in the championship match was in 2006-2007, before Yang Hyo-jin turned pro, and in 2010-2011, Kim Yeon-kyung was playing in an overseas league.

Yang Hyo-jin was all smiles in the first set on Monday.

Hyundai EC defeated Heungkuk Life 3-2 (18-25 14-25 25-20 25-20 16-14) in straight sets.

"I don't think it's a match between me and my sister," Yang said after the match, "I think it's a team effort. I don't have to put too much pressure on myself," she said.

"We were able to win today because all the players played well, including Moma, Wipawi, Jung Jung-yoon, and Lee Da-hyun," she added.

Earlier, after the third round of the playoffs (PO) against Jung Kwan-jang, Kim Yeon-kyung said, "I spoke to Hyo-jin before the game and she said, 'I personally support you. Perhaps Hyundai EC was rooting for her," she said.

Yang Hyo-jin laughed and said, "My sister is hard to stop, and (Kim) Suzy is also a seasoned player, so honestly, I didn't think, 'It's good that Heungkuk Life came up,' but I saw her playing hard and cheered her on."

"I was worried that my sister would have a hard time physically, but she did well today, so I thought, 'She's amazing,'" Ang Hyo-jin said.

Yang Hyo-jin is eager to savor her first championship game 토토 appearance in eight years, since the 2015-2016 season.

Hyundai EC topped the regular season in both the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 seasons, but the early termination of the league due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic cost them the chance to win the overall title.

"It's great to be in a position to win the championship," Yang Hyo-jin said, adding, "I thought, 'Let's enjoy it, win or lose,' but I think we need to play a little better to do that."

Looking back on the first and second sets, she said, "I thought, 'Can we really be this bad?' "After the second set, we stopped wanting to win and felt like, 'Let's move forward a little bit,' and it worked out well as the team's performance improved and the opponent struggled physically."