By Jonny Garwood

This year the Badger are aiming to provide a new platform for student sport societies to celebrate their individual or group achievements once a fortnight, in our edition. Whether you are a new, or growing student society, we want to keep people at the university covered and involved in your fixtures, and whether you play competitively in a league system or just have the occasional fixture, we want to keep everyone informed on your progress.

Below we have featured match reports from a number of sports societies who have played fixtures this week. These include women’s tennis; women’s basketball; men’s rugby; women’s lacrosse and women’s hockey. As the sporting season recommences for 2019/20, the Badger is your place to go for weekly highlights and coverage on a growing number of competitive sports societies on campus.

 

Women’s Tennis

Author – Nikki K Chia

This week, the tennis team has come a long way. Having used to have played in the freezing cold outdoor courts in the winter, this year we have made a big step forward and secured a partnership with Brighton Virgin Active indoor courts, where we will be commencing our training shortly, With this we have very committed players and quality training. Yesterday, the women’s team had a smashing victory, with a 5-1 win over Reading University, who are top of the league.

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Sussex Ladies Tennis: (left to right) Nikki Kelana Chia, Molly Reed , Eliza Graham, Amber Wood.

Women’s Basketball

Author – Veronika Marova and Claire Nilles

The women’s basketball team finished their first BUCS game against St Mary’s with a big win. Even though, the team started off with a rough first quarter, the team managed to take the lead in the second quarter and kept the intensity up throughout the third quarter. Even though the fatigue hit the team in the last quarter we still managed to secure an amazing 16 points win. The final score was 65:49. A massive thank you goes out to our men’s basketball team who came and supported us in Hawaian outfits. It was a great start to the new season and we officially welcomed our freshers on the team after their welcome party! Well done girls!

 

Women’s Lacrosse

Author – Phoebe Morgan

Wednesday 9th was the Women’s 1sts Lacrosse team’s first match of the season with an epic win against Chichester at their Bognor Regis campus, with the final score being 23-2 to Sussex. The team this year is made up of some seniors as well as a few new freshers who have already made their mark in the team and shown strong technique and amazing potential! Our top scorers of the match were Sarah Lody (5), Lydia Henke (4), Anouska Royle (4) and two new members Issy Bignell and Olivia Gilliam both scoring 3. A special mention must go out to goal keeper Marisa Parkes who handles the pressure of her position impeccably and continues to amaze us with her skills! Coach David Charles praised everyone’s confidence with the ball and the sense of union amongst the team, especially as it was the first match of the season and a new team. It’s going to be an exciting season with an incredibly strong squad, and it will only get better as stronger connections are established between the new team. All in all, the 1sts lacrosse team have had a cracking start to their season and are hoping to continue to play at this level in order to move up into the next league and hopefully win the Cup for the second year running!!!

 

Men’s Rugby

Author – Max McArdle (Captain)

Dressed in training kit, we set off for our first game of the season against Bournemouth in a friendly fixture. After a 2 and a half hour journey we arrived with the projected weather forecast of torrential rain seeming to have held off. The breeze was subtle and the air mild. With boots laced and tightened we started our match warm-up. Due to all our teams having fixtures we were limited to a squad of 23 players, compared to Bournemouth having triple our numbers. This did not phase us however and we kept focused on our own skills. Sussex won the toss and decided to kick off. The game was being played in quarters (twenty-minute quarters). The whistle blew and quickly we were caught off guard with Bournemouth scoring an early try. We regrouped and agreed that was the only points they were scoring this game. With strong carries and slick hands, we managed to score two tries with one being converted making it 12-5 by the first 20mins. The second 20 started with Bournemouth putting on a whole new team with Sussex only substituting 4 players. With our line speed and strong carries the pressure got to Bournemouth allowing us to score a try in both the second and third quarter of the game. With 5 minutes to go in the third quarter crisis hit as one of our players dislocated his shoulder which had been a reoccurring injury. Nevertheless, we kept playing hard. The last quarter saw us score another 2 tries but came at a cost of us losing another one of our boys to injury, with an illegal high tackle from Bournemouth cutting open our players head. However, it wasn’t to no avail as Sussex University Men’s Rugby 1st XV beat Bournemouth with a final score of 34-5. A very successful start to the season with hopefully many more success stories to come.

 

Women’s Hockey

Author – Gemma Hill (Captain)

This week Sussex Women’s Hockey had their first match of the season against King’s College. With a band of new comers to the squad and an injury at the third minute, we had a slow start, playing defensively and knitting together as a team, then the lull was broken by Kings conceding a short corner. Our Vice Captain Georgie used this to her advantage and scored a screamer of a straight strike from the top of the ‘D’ to make it 1-0 to the south coast outfit. Kings fought back and managed to get a goal away before half time, leaving us at an even 1-1. The second half Sussex played a much more offensive game, passing so quickly it looked like pin ball. This quick passing got the ball into Milla who slipped it past the Kings goalkeeper. At 2-1 to Sussex, it only went up from there, as the next goal came from Freya, who took the ball straight in from a long corner, defeating four defenders to hit it straight to the backboard of the goal to make it 3-1 to Sussex. The final goal came from Jenny passing the ball straight into the “D”, where Milla was there to score her second goal of the match. Final score: Sussex 4-1 King’s College.

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