As you have no doubt noticed, OzVolley has been quiet for a while, this is largely due to me wanting to see if I can live without updating a blog every day…

Turns out I can, and while I will miss it, I will be moving onto the next chapter of my life and so will not be able to put the time into the site any more.

The site URL will exist until February, when it will disappear. I will leave it open until then, because the site remains one of the few ways people can have their voices heard on volleyball in this country and there are a heap of valuable voices to be heard!

Thanks to Huy and Robbo for their help over he last 2 years, and to Devo for his work over the previous 3. Since 2006, when Devo kicked off, through to now, we have managed around a million visitors to our sites, which is a nice amount really!

All the best everyone, happy new year!

The Canberra Heat have been crowned V-League Champions for 2011 after beating Victoria in a hard fought and intense 5 set gold medal match, while NSW got past the AIS in 5 sets to finish with the Bronze medal.

Full V-League Finals weekend results:

Semi-Finals
Victoria defeated AIS 3:2 (25-18, 25-18, 30-32, 23-25, 15-7)
Canberra Heat defeated NSW 3:0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-22)

Bronze Medal Game
NSW defeated AIS 3:2 (22-25, 25-19, 27-25, 17-25, 16-14)

Gold Medal Game
Canberra Heat defeated Victoria 3:2 (21-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-18, 15-11)

V-League proved to be a tremendous success with high quality elite volleyball being played across the country by all teams.

V-League finals will be fought out at the AIS Volleyball Courts in Canberra this weekend.

Friday night:
Semi Final 1 6pm – Victoria (1) vs AIS (4)
Semi Final 2 8pm – Canberra Heat (2) vs NSW (3)

Saturday:
1pm – Bronze Medal Playoff
3pm – Gold Medal Playoff

So who will be crowned the best team in Australian volleyball for 2011?

Who will be announced as the inaugural V-League Most Valuable Player as the presentation function on Saturday night?

Visit this page on the avf website to view the draft draw.

Interesting to see Japanese teams involved, as well as no NZ teams in open honours and about 1000 teams in the open div 2/3 category.

AVF have released their event plan for the following year, read below, or check out the avf website.

Outcomes from National Events Workshop
In late October the Member States and Volleyball Australia met for a 3 day National Events Workshop to determine the future direction of events in the National Events Portfolio. These outcomes were further confirmed at the National Stakeholders meeting last weekend in Canberra.

If you have any questions about our National Events please contact your Home State or Volleyball Australia’s Competition and Events Manager, Cassie Behrens, on (02) 6247 6633 or cassie.behrens@avf.org.au

350 games, 114 teams, 23 courts, 13 divisions later and the 2011 46th Good Neighbour Tournament has come to a close.

Well done to all teams for being part of a great weekend of volleyball action.

In the Men’s Honours division the AIS and Canberra Heat again fought out an intense 5 set gold medal match, but the Heat were unable to win back-to-back titles going down to the AIS 3-2 (25-23, 25-22, 23-25, 25-27, 15-7)

In Women’s Honours Sydney North were able to win back-to-back gold medals, defeating the Volleyball Australia Development Women 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-23)

Thanks to Volleyball Australia for the following:

The AVF AGM & Annual Dinner was held last weekend at the Oak Room in Canberra with delegates from around Australia meeting to review the past activity of Volleyball Australia and help set the direction and priorities for the sport of Volleyball in Australia. The AGM returned the three outgoing Directors (Phil Muller, Jonathon Fogarty and Shane Hennessy) unopposed and formally awarded Life Membership to Phil Borgeaud, Russell Borgeaud, Peter McConnon and David Eldridge. Presentations of these Life Membership Awards will take place at the 2012 Annual Awards Dinner in July 2012.

Administrator of the Year
Gavin Lewis (WA)

All teams were still in the running for finals on the last weekend of games.

However, after some hard fought games Victoria, Canberra Heat, NSW and AIS will go through to the finals.

The ladder at the end of the rounds is:

1. Victoria – 10 Wins (Sets For/Against 32/13)
2. Canberra Heat - 9 Wins (Sets 32/14)
3. New South Wales - 8 Wins (Sets 26/23)
4. AIS – 5 Wins (Sets 26/24)
5. WA Hornets – 4 Wins (Sets 20/32)
6. University Blues (Vic) – 3 Wins (Sets 19/33)
7. UTSSU (NSW) – 3 Wins (Sets 16/32)

More details can be found at http://www.v-league.net/men/2011-Men

There were three V-League games played last weekend in Canberra and Sydney.

On Friday night in Canberra, the AIS defeated Canberra Heat 3:2 (22-25, 25-20, 25-19, 16-25, 15-12).

Then on Sunday in Sydney the AIS beat UTSSU in 3 sets (25-15, 25-17, 26-24) and NSW edged out the Canberra Heat in a tough 5 setter (21-25, 25-27, 30-28, 25-16, 15-13).

The final round of V-League matches sees all 7 teams playing this weekend in either Melbourne or Canberra.

NSW and UTSSU travel to Canberra to take on the Heat and the AIS, while WA head to Melbourne to play 2 matches against both Victoria and Uni Blues.

Spots in the top 4 are still up for grabs so results this weekend will be vital for those teams trying to qualify for the finals weekend in Canberra at the start of December.

Full details at: http://www.v-league.net/men/2011-Men

Congratulations to the winners from round 1 of the Renault National Beach Volleyball Series.

Men’s winner: Bo Soderberg/Tristan Boyd
Women’s Winner: Alice Rohkamper/Mariafe Artacho del Solar

Anyone with any news and views?