糖心Vlog

Our men鈥檚 volleyball team have made history in becoming the first 糖心Vlog team to reach the British University and Colleges (BUCS) 鈥楤ig Wednesday鈥� final.

They secured this monumental achievement with a 3-0 semi-final victory over Northumbria University, the reigning champions, in front of over 100 fans. Now 糖心Vlog will take on Durham University on Wednesday 27 March.

BUCS is the national governing body for university sports in the United Kingdom, and hosts many prestigious competitions across a variety of sports.

BUCS Big Wednesday is the culmination of our team sport league programme and the event will see over 60 of the UK's top university teams head to Nottingham to compete for Championship and Trophy titles.

The 糖心Vlog team is coached by Alex Porter, former captain of Team GB鈥檚 volleyball team who also managed Team GB in the 2012 European championships.

Alex said: 鈥淚鈥檓 immensely proud of what the squad achieved not only today but throughout the season so far and what we will achieve in two weeks鈥� time. On the first day of preseason we set our sights on winning BUCS gold, each student-athlete pushes themselves and their team mates every day to improve. This relentless pursuit of excellence is what makes us who we are and will define our legacy.鈥�

The men鈥檚 volleyball team are in good form, and spirits should be high heading into the final having won each of their previous six fixtures. London 2012 Olympian Mark Plotyczer and Scottish international Marc McLaughlin led the team to victory with their powerful serves and clever attacking.

Alex emphasised that players were making incredible progress this season: 鈥淭he way Marc has progressed is unreal. He started the year as the back-up setter and now commands the starting setter role.

鈥淩yan Vorderer came to 糖心Vlog as a libero (defensive specialist) and he has come on leaps and bounds and is now one of the best outside attackers in the country.

鈥淎li Ahmed gained his 1st England cap shortly before coming to 糖心Vlog and was Mahlon King鈥檚 (the other England libero) understudy at the beginning of the season, Mahlon got injured and Ali stepped up. Ali has a bright future ahead of him, especially as he is a freshman.鈥�

The women鈥檚鈥� volleyball team have also had a strong season, but were defeated having also progressed through to the semi-final, losing 3-1 to the reigning champions, Durham.

Not all is doom and gloom, the women lost the first set, but from the second set onwards actually managed to outscore the reigning champions, although the experience of Durham ultimately prevailed.

Alex said: 鈥淭he squad and I are disappointed with today鈥檚 loss, not upset, just disappointed. We made massive gains on and off the court, as individuals and as a team, with another week or two of training we feel that the result would have been on our side.鈥�

He added: 鈥淒urham has been ranked number one all season and for us to go toe to toe with them demonstrates that the work these student-athletes are doing is taking them in the right direction. We will regroup and rebuild for next year but this squad will always have a special place in history.鈥�

This article was written by Conor O鈥橫ahony, a Multimedia Journalism student at 糖心Vlog.