National Volleyball student cup
qualifiers
On Sunday 29th November, Newcastle under Lyme
College’s Volleyball Academy left in the early hours to compete in the
Volleyball England Indoor student cup qualifiers at Leeds University.
A male and female squad both made the journey, both the
men’s and the women’s squads were made up of NULC College students
unfortunately due to injuries both teams could not get full strength squad’s;
Men’s- Zakk Hadgett, Connor Grimes, Rich James, Matt Smith, Harry Dawson, Harry
Kearon and Kamil Kempinski. Women’s- Olivia Burton, Olivia Beckett, Aimee Degg,
Rita Magalhaes, Lucy Matthews, Florence Owen and Georgina Reah.
The student cup is a higher level competition compared to
college volleyball which the students are used to playing against due to it
being a University competition, other teams who competed were well-established
University scholars and Academies.
The women’s team had a tough day ahead of them especially
without some of their most experienced players; Rosie Barley and Georgie Reah
who turned up to support the girls but could not play due to injury. Sadly the
level of volleyball was too high for this young in-experienced side with
missing two of their most experienced players and unfortunately the ladies did
not qualify for the student finals but should be proud of themselves as they
competed well throughout the day and gave a good account of themselves. The
tournament was a great learning experience for the girls and really good
preparation for AoC National Finals in April where they will be representing
the West Midlands and for the next Student Cup qualifiers.
The men’s team had a tough start to the competition facing the
group favourites Nottingham 1, a University team with a scholarship funded
Volleyball programme, after a tough fought battle NULC lost the first game 2-1.
The next fixture saw NULC take on Nottingham 2, another
University team, NULC went on to comfortably win 2-0.
The third fixture saw NULC take on Bristol with another convincing
2-0 win, after a tough fourth game against Oxford NULC again managed to come
out on top with another 2-0 victory.
The final fixture of the day saw NULC men’s team take on
Warwick; Warwick had also had a close game with group favourites Nottingham 1
losing 2-1 to them, so this looked to be a tough fixture for NULC. As predicted
the game was a very close match seeing Warwick take the first set 25-22, NULC
fought back in the second set and won 25-23 taking the game into a final set,
the final set saw NULC lose 15-10 and lose the fixture 2-1, the long day and
lack of available substitutions had clearly taken its toll on the NULC men’s
team.
NULC Men’s Volleyball Academy managed to qualify for the
Student Cup Final 16 where they will face the top teams from across the country
such as Sheffield Hallam University and Essex University. The finals are due to
take place in Norwich on the weekend 6th - 7th
February. This is a massive achievement for the lads so Congratulations and a
massive good luck from all at NULC.
