Net gain
Air Force team steals victory in Victorian volleyball final

By Private John Wellfare

Air Force team captain SQNLDR Dave Mackay (number 12) and FLTLT Jude Chew prepare to return the ball in the final against Navy.

Photo by AB Nina Nikolin

AIR Force volleyball players defied the odds to slam a promising Navy side three sets to nil in the final of the Victorian Inter-Service Volleyball Championship at HMAS Cerberus.

Held on August 10 and 11, the competition pitted men’s and women’s Service teams from throughout the state against each other in six hotly contested matches before the final.

Air Force coach and manager Squadron Leader Tony Wennerbom said the team’s win in the finals had been surprising.

“I actually felt the Navy were probably the stronger team, because they had a few of their trainees who’d been playing together in a local comp,” he said.

“Out of eight of us, only two had played inter-Service before and the rest were all new.

“Team-wise, [the Navy] were probably more established than we were.”

Both Navy and Air Force teams had quickly established themselves against Army in the early games of the tournament.

Air Force were the underdogs going into the final, having lost to Navy in two of the earlier games.
In the finals, Squadron Leader Wennerbom said it was the consistency of the Air Force team’s game that made the difference, but the sets were always close.

“In each set we were within three points of each other,” he said. “It was just that we managed to pip them at the end of the sets to get ahead.

“One of the PTIs, Sergeant Brad Billing, served fairly consistently and gave us a good five-point buffer in the first set.

“The second set was similar, the Navy were ahead by a couple of points and that stayed right up to about the 20-point mark, then we had a run of points.

“The third set was actually the tightest. We were 24-20 and the Navy won the next three points, so it was 24-23.”

With the scores tight, the setter set the ball out to Squadron Leader Wennerbom, who managed to send it through the two Navy blockers for the game-winning point.

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