Seoul Jinhwa falls to Carolina Core

Posted by: scbrooks

The stage was set Friday night when the Seoul Jinhwa battled the Carolina Core in what would become a one-sided victory for the Americans. After speaking with the entire Jinhwa team, including GM Crystal Kim before the game started, they knew what they needed to do in order to keep the match close going into Counter-Strike:Source. Crystal thought the Jinhwa would keep it close in DoA (both male and female) and CSS, while the Jinhwa would win in FIFA.

The game lineup for the night was set: DoA Male, DoA Female, FIFA, PGR3 and Counter-Strike:Source.

First up on stage was our own Sarafan against the reigning Region 1 champion, OffbeatNinja. After an opening round win, Sarafan lost the 2nd and 3rd rounds, but would bring the match back to a 2-2 score with a 4th round victory. The remaining rounds of the match included some of the most spectacular last second heroics I have seen in all of DoA. In round 5 it looked as if Sarafan would be able to mount a great comeback, but with his very last sliver of life, OffbeatNinja did what made him the champion in Region 1: he never gave up. After another extremely close round 6, Offbeat sealed the deal in round 7 to take the first win for the Core.

Franchise Score: Seoul 2 : Carolina 5

Next up was our DoA Female player, Pure0528. She would go head to head against Mystik, the #4 ranked DoA Female from Region 1. As soon as the match began, you could tell that Pure was a little nervous being on stage and made some early round mistakes, which made it near impossible to make a comeback against a player like Mystik. She never relented her attacks against Pure and clinched the Core victory, 5-1.

Franchise Score: Seoul 3 : Carolina 10

Unlimited came in to his FIFA match with high hopes of beating the worst ranked FIFA player in Region 1 last season. Peekay was first to score, although a little bit of luck went into the play, with Unlimited scoring on his own goal while trying to clear a ball that was on the goal line. Just as the half was about to end, Unlimited made an incredible cross into the middle from the right sideline, directly to his player in front of the 18 yard line. This goal would prove to be decisive as peekay would equalize the game in the latter part of the 2nd half.

A penalty shootout occurred for the first time in CGS history. Both players scored their first 2 shots when peekay stopped one of Unlimited's shots. All Peekay needed to do was score to bring the 3rd straight victory for the Core, but the FIFA gods decided otherwise. Peekay missed his shot and on his final shot to bring the match into another sudden death shootout, Unlimited blocked a low kick to the right post and Seoul captured their first win of the night 6-5.

Franchise Score: Seoul 9 : Carolina 15

The Jinhwa's hopes were on the shouders of the Yoon brothers, Seoul's dynamic duo in PGR. They were to play against Core's strong racing duo of Phantom and Rex. Both of them fell just a few hundred metres short of winning the Region 1 Finals. Phantom and Rex started off the line extremely fast and spun out Yoon in the opening seconds of the race. The Hikaru made a valiant effort of the first lap but was slammed against the wall by Rex, which cemented the 1-2 finish for the Core and almost pushing the franchise match out of reach for the Jinhwa.

Franchise Score: Seoul 10 : Carolina 23

In the last game against the Core, the Counter-Strike:Source teams would end the night. The map was de_inferno and the Jinhwa would start out on the defensive side first. After a slow start by the Jinhwa, the Core capitalized on some positional mistakes to clinch the win for the Core. Although RIVER, musa and zbz made a valiant effort, the Jinhwa fell well short of winning.

Franchise Score: Seoul 15 : Carolina 36

The Jinhwa will travel back to Seoul and begin preparing for the start of the CGS Asia league next season. We would like to wish the remaining 8 teams the best of the luck in the remaining rounds.