They beat North Island Two (25-20, 25-21, 25-20) and South Island (25-12, 25-20, 26-24).
The Tracey Braddock-coached South Island side pipped North Island Two in a nail-biting match. They lost the first two sets before clawing their way back to clinch it 3-2 (18-25, 24-26, 25-23, 25-18, 18-16).
While the results looked overwhelming, Kilham pointed out the matches were relatively close to show there wasn't much difference tactically between the three teams.
"There aren't any easy matches," he said, revealing they had split the North Island sides with parity in mind.
The edge North Island One probably had, Kilham suspected, was captain Ginny Broderick, of New Plymouth, who is a setter, Kelena Roughan, of Whangarei, a labero (specialist defender) and Italia Tiatia, of Wellington, an outside hitter.
Tracey Braddock coaches North Island One and Charlie French South Island.
But Kilham emphasised every one of the 32 female players impressed although they also had technical areas to sharpen.
The goal is to challenge their proteges, on the national pathway to development, with solid games.
"We want them to add some variety into the way they attack and be able to hit different balls from different players."
Kilham said the crop of players here was second-tier ones perched behind those who went to the Asian Championship in China in March.
"Some of them played in the New Zealand age-group teams last year and just missed out this year so now they want to get back in, I guess, because there's always opportunities in volleyball."
He expected some sizzlers in today's games because the momentum could shift in the blink of an eye.
"All the players contributed today and all did some really good things so what we'll be after [today] is some consistency. Everyone makes mistakes but we'd like to keep them to a minimum."
In the U19 men's match, the Nic Christie-coached South Island beat North Island 3-1 (25-20, 15-25, 22-25, 29-31) in another close affair but the latter bounced back with a 3-0 (25-23, 25-22, 29-27) victory to level the five-match series.
In his first year at the helm, Dickson echoed Kilham's sentiments on a cliff-hanger series.
"We have two very even teams and we both have strengths in different areas," said the coach from New Plymouth before two games today and the final tomorrow from 9.30am.
He said combinations became clearer after the first game and the players adjusted accordingly.
"The South Island team are pretty strong and they came through again this afternoon," he said of the side that Christie, of Whakatane, mentors.
Without getting caught up too much in jargon, Dickson said North Island became sharper at the coalface and put up the shutters with more urgency in the afternoon.
Those who put their hand up by tomorrow would be nominated for the national trials for the Asian Championship in Thailand next year.
The club nationals are in Wellington in the late September school holidays.
Dickson said Volleyball NZ had resuscitated the two-island concept after almost a decade.
During that recess the age-group sides often competed against their Aussie counterparts.
"It's quite nice to bring that back because we didn't compete against each other so we've decided to start up that rivalry again with a new initiative this year."
He said the other bonus was keeping the costs down and taking the development programme to other centres.
Dickson thanked Volleyball HB for doing a sterling job.
