Travelling to the University of East Anglia Sportspark in Norwich for the 2024 BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Championships, the University of Nottingham Korfball Club ensure that the long journey was hugely worthwhile by delivering blistering performances across the weekend of the 13th and 14th April to claim a deserved silver medal. Having finished first in two BUCS stages this season - the Preliminary round in November 2023 and the Regional round in February - the club qualified for the National Championships.
At the finals, the University of Nottingham would face Exeter, Cambridge and Newcastle in the group stage - dispatching all three with a series of victories to qualify for the knockout rounds. The quarter final would see a comfortable 14-5 victory over Oxford to set up a semi final tie against the home side - UEA. However, the green and gold would be unfazed and delivered a 19-11 win to reach a BUCS Korfball National Championship final for the first time since 2015.
Our Nottingham athletes would face Loughborough in a tense final which would go right down to the wire. Unfortunately, Loughborough would edge the contest by a solitary goal to win 14-15, but the effort and performances of the University of Nottingham cannot be understated. Becca Hanks finished as the top goal scorer of the competition with 29 goals across the university's 6 games, with a 6 goal performance in the final. Ollie Francis - a first year at the University of Nottingham who is also on the England Korfball senior squad where he competed in the IKF World Korfball Championships in October 2023 - also played extremely well.
The clubs first team captain Meera Khalil reflected on the success by saying; "We’ve been working hard all season to reach the levels we have. We played extremely well throughout the whole weekend, and although we didn’t win in the final, it was a very close game right through to the end. As captain, I am so proud of everyone on the team and extremely happy with our silver medals."
We congratulate everyone associated with the Korfball Club on this success. The BUCS Championships are the last competition of the clubs season, and the club are now looking ahead to next year where they look to continue this success. You can keep up to date with the club by following them on social media here.
You can find out more about
performance sport at the University of Nottingham here.
Posted on Monday 22nd April 2024