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The Peppers are cooking: Gwangju club attains 10 V League wins in a season

Published: 20 Feb. 2025, 13:44 Updated: 20 Feb. 2025, 17:02

PAIK JI-HWAN
[email protected]

The Gwangju Pepper Savings Bank AI Peppers, left, celebrate during a V League game against the Daejeon Jung Kwan Jang Red Sparks at Pepper Stadium in Gwangju on Feb. 19. [YONHAP]

The Gwangju Pepper Savings Bank AI Peppers achieved a historic 10th win in the 2024-25 V League season on Wednesday after a perfect 3-0 victory over the Daejeon Jung Kwan Jang Red Sparks, recording double-digit wins in a single campaign for the first time.

The Peppers won the first set 25-21 at Pepper Stadium in Gwangju and maintained their momentum through the end, going on to claim the second set 25-23 and third set 25-13 to seal their 10th win of the season.

“I am happy to have secured our first double digit wins,” said Peppers outside hitter Park Eun-seo, who scored 10 points on Wednesday. “I had a tough spell, but I am glad that I got through it.”

Wednesday’s victory comes after the club suffered two straight 3-0 losses to the Heungkuk Life Insurance Pink Spiders and Suwon Hyundai Engineering & Construction Hillstate in its previous two games.

The Peppers’ 10th victory adds more success to the club’s improvements this season that have allowed them to transition from a perpetual underdog to a team capable of challenging league title favorites.

Since their foundation in 2021 ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, the Peppers had done nothing but struggle, finishing in last place on the V League table in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The Peppers even set the record for the longest losing streak in the women’s V League at 21 matches before extending the all-time record to 23 during the 2023-24 campaign.

This season, however, the Gwangju club even secured two wins against reigning champions Hillstate, beating them 3-2 and 3-1 in December and January.

Retaining sixth place on the table through the end of the campaign would mark the Peppers' highest finish, but they will not be able to reach the postseason for the first time, as they are out of the playoff race.

The Peppers will not finish in third place even if they win all their remaining games and the teams ahead of them lose all their games.

In the V League, the third placed team enters the playoffs to play against the league runner-up in order to determine the side that faces the league winner in the championship.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]