Prisons clinch fifth Africa Club Championship trophy

By Oscar Pilipili

Nairobi,Kenya; Victorious Kenya Prisons women’s volleyball team returned home to a red-carpet reception at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

Family members, volleyball officials, friends and fans braved morning chilly weather to receive the team that landed at 5.50am yesterday.

Prisons defeated determined Petroliers of Algeria in ground breaking five-set thriller 3-2 (25-21, 20-25, 25-19, 20-25, 15-6) to attain their fifth title in CAVB African Club Championship in Antanarivo, Madagascar, last Friday.

Team manager David Kilundo told FeverPitch that their ocus now turns to the FIVB World Club Championships that would be held in Switzerland in October.

“Our targets for this year were to win the continental championships, win some matches at world event and retain the national league title,” said Kilundo.

“We’ve cleared the first hurdle and we now remain with two more.”

Kilundo however conceded that Prisons need quality preparations to win some matches at World level.

“We’re going to discuss with the authorities and propose to them on how the team should prepare for the World Cup,” he said. “We need to play build-up matches outside Africa to make impact at the World Cup.”

Prisons coach David Lung’aho, with five continental titles under his belt, concurred with his team manager saying: “My players are talented and ambitious and they need to play many matches outside Africa to gain more exposure.”

Captain Diana Khisa said they would train hard with the view of achieving better results at the World Cup.

“We’ve not been able to win any match in our four appearances at the World Cup but all the players believe with better training we can achieve this elusive goal,” said Khisa

Pipeline who finished fifth overall returned home last Saturday.

The slim margin by which Prisons won against their Algerian opponents confirms that the gap is quickly narrowing and soon they will find it hard to retain the continental title.