Submitted by Lauren Thomas on Sun, 18/12/2016 - 00:00
On Saturday 26th November, Cambridge University Korfball Club hosted the 1st round of the national Student Korfball Championships at the University of Cambridge Sports Centre. This year, a record 63 teams entered nationally.
Along with the Cambridge 1st and 2nd teams, there were four University of Nottingham teams and a team from the University of Bedfordshire. The top five out of seven teams would progress to the regional round of BUCS in January, while the remaining two would go to the national plate competition in March.
For Cambridge, the day started off with Cambridge 1 playing Cambridge 2. A relaxed atmosphere saw Cambridge 1 easily take the match.
For Cambridge 1, the aim of the day was to finish as high as possible to gain a good position for the regional round. The game after saw another comfortable win against the University of Bedfordshire team, whose fast paced, “basketball-style” korfball can sometimes upset more experienced teams. Cambridge 1 faced their biggest challenge in the third match against a strong Nottingham 1 team, anticipated to be the deciding match for first place on the day. An ankle injury saw the Cambridge 1 captain leave the court, and Nottingham 1 narrowly took the game 6-4. The remainder of the matches against Nottingham teams were comfortable wins for Cambridge 1 with plenty of goals, leading to overall second place on the day and a joint top scorer award for Sam Galvin (male) and Sharna Willis (female).
Cambridge 2 concentrated on coming in the top 5 to qualify for regionals. After the initial loss to Cambridge 1, the 2nds held onto a tense 3-1 victory against Nottingham 3 for a great start. The tension mounted after a narrow 2-0 loss to Nottingham 4, both games extremely low scoring. The 2nds pulled out everything against a physical Bedfordshire team, and in the frantic final minutes snatched victory 4-3. After losing to Nottingham 1 and 2, the fate of the 2nds was in the results of Bedfordshire and Nottingham 4. Fortunately, the matches went the way the team wanted, meaning they progressed in 4th place to regionals.
A great day of korfball was had by all. Cambridge 1 and 2 will travel to UEA in January for the regional round. Our Varsity Match is taking place on Saturday 25th February from 4pm to 8pm at the University of Cambridge Sports Centre, so be sure to come along!