Women’s volleyball team is promoted to BUCS Premier League
The Sussex 1st women’s volleyball team have been promoted to the BUCS Premier League after beating Surrey and Swansea in a three-way play-off.
The women triumphed over Surrey 3-0 and Swansea 3-2 in the BUCS South East Division 1A League.
Coach James Clow said: “We started out this season looking to rebuild the team for the next year but they just kept on winning. It has been a fairytale season.”
The squad was split into two separate teams in order to field players for their final League away-game against Swansea as well for the annual Brighton vs Sussex Varsity competition, both of which were held last month.
Despite losing to Brighton in the Varsity match, their success against the Welsh university team secured them a place in the BUCS Premier League.
Vice-captain, Daisy Mumby, said: “There are only 12 available spots for the elite volleyball teams in the country, half of which are for university teams from the north and the other half for the south.”
Next season Sussex women’s team will be among other national level university volleyball teams including: Bournemouth, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, King’s College London, Northumbria, Oxford and St Andrews.
Daisy added: “Our women's team has always done very well both in the BUCS league and in the National Student cup (finishing 6th place in the country). After losing more than half our team to graduation last year we had to regroup and rebuilt. With a new coach and new players, we have created a solid foundation with which we have been able to continue our teams great success.”
BUCS is the governing body for higher education (HE) sport, providing competition opportunities to 165 HE institutions across 51 sports.