Volleyball Team Are National Champions

25 May 2010

To end a very successful season on the National Volleyball stage, the team from Salford City College, Eccles Sixth Form Centre entered the inaugural British Colleges Beach Volleyball National Finals, held in Croyde, North Devon. This was not only the first National Colleges competition to be held in this sport, it was also the first in which staff teams were able to enter against students, albeit playing for a lesser prize than the students.

Salford City College entered four teams into the competition, all from the Eccles Centre. With an eight hour drive down to Croyde, Salford City College were the most distant college entering these finals and were competing against colleges from more obvious beach areas with established beach developments.

The competition started with pool games, which lead into seeded knockout finals. Three of the teams from the Eccles Centre, including the staff, met each other in these first rounds but all won high placings into the finals.

In the final of the competition, Kamil Karymow and Ben Edwards, both sports students at Eccles, came up against a team from North Devon College, the local team. Despite their relative inexperience at the beach volleyball game, they won through in straight sets to take the BCS National Beach Title.

Jake Hughes, one of the students from the Eccles Centre, afterwards said, 'It was a great experience, playing in this competition and fantastic to be able to play on the beach. We had a great time and are really proud of the places all the teams got, despite there being no beach in Salford!'

This was a very successful end to a superb season, with the Salford City College Volleyball squad having been in three National Finals, two Semi Finals and winning one National title.