Nottingham take BUCS title on the beach

The BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) volleyball season came to a close with the 2024 Beach Volleyball Championships that took place across two days in early June. Travelling to the beaches of Sandbanks in Bournemouth, University of Nottingham athletes competed against university teams from across the United Kingdom in an effort to claim a national championship, as well as shield and vase honours.

Nottingham entered pairs into all three competitions (championship, shield, and vase) in both the men's and women's draws. Across those six competitions, the efforts of our players reaped tremendous rewards with the university winning four sets of medals - including two golds.

One of these gold would also signify a national championship as Rob Morgan and Slater Bird bested the rest of the field to claim victory in the men's top tier competition and cement their place as the best men's beach pair in UK university volleyball. The men's pairings continued their fine form on the sand as Oli Saxby and Andre Castro reached the final of the shield competition before claiming victory to ensure two of the three men's categories would be claimed by the University of Nottingham.

On the women's competitions, our pairs were also performing to high levels and motoring through the rounds with the teams of Izzy McDonald and Pearl Lai, and Adele Sotgiu and Emma Godwin both reaching finals. In the trophy Adele and Emma performed well throughout and claimed silver, whilst Izzy and Pearl came just short in an enthralling 3 setter in the women’s shield final to also win silver. 

We would like to congratulate all of our University of Nottingham volleyball players and coaches on another fantastic season that has culminated in a superb set of performances and results on the beach.

You can keep up to date with the University of Nottingham Volleyball Club by following them on social media here.

You can find out more about the Performance Volleyball programme at the University of Nottingham here. 

Notes for editors

University of Nottingham are the top UK University for team sport, placing 2nd in the overall British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) rankings in the 2022/23 season. For more information on our performance sport offer, including scholarships and support for student athletes, please click here.