Rhodes University's A side were one of the surprise packages in the early days of the University Sports South Africa (USSA) squash tournament.
Rhodes is hosting the annual tournament, with matches being played at the Rhodes Alec Mullins courts, as well as at the Kingswood College courts.
Rhodes University's A side were one of the surprise packages in the early days of the University Sports South Africa (USSA) squash tournament.
Rhodes is hosting the annual tournament, with matches being played at the Rhodes Alec Mullins courts, as well as at the Kingswood College courts.
Sixteen teams are taking part, representing 13 universities from across the country. Rhodes is one of three universities sporting an A and B side.
Each team is made up of six players, three men and three women, all playing individual games. The 16 teams were split into various pools, with four teams in a pool.
Both Rhodes A and Rhodes B were in Pool Orange. The top two finishing sides in each pool made the A section, with the rest of the teams in the B section.
Going into the tournament, Rhodes A were eighth seeded, with the B side 13th seeds. In their first match of the tournament, Rhodes A met their B side at the Kingswood courts on Monday morning. The Rhodes A side won 24-3.
In their second match, Rhodes A met fourth seeds, University of Cape Town. The Rhodes side secured a great 20-9 win over the more fancied team from UCT.
In their final pool match, Rhodes went down 9-16 to 12th seeds University of KwaZulu-Natal. With their great win against UCT, Rhodes A made it through to the A section, together with top seeds University of Pretoria, University of North West – Potchefstroom, University of Witwaterstrand, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University of Johannesburg, University of Stellenbosch and University of Cape Town.
The Rhodes B side lost to UCT 4-24 and also lost to the University of KwaZulu-Natal 7-17. Tournament referee Kerr Rogers, a former sports officer at Rhodes University Sports Administration, said the Rhodes A side had been a "surprise team”. They had clearly prepared well for the tournament, he said, although playing in their home town might also have be an advantage.
Rogers said NMMU were also a surprise team, having beaten second seeds University of North West in the earlier Pool matches. The Rhodes A is made up of Matthew Ferriera, Jacques De Villiers, Garran Kent, Caroline Ross, Shanna Swart and Joy Ridguard.
In the Rhodes B team are David Kind, Justin Faure, Tatenda Mutinutema, Biddy Charlar, Gwen Matthews and Emma Olley.
The team managers are Brendon Martens and Roxanne Fietze.
In the second half of the tournament, each section was split into two pools of four, with the teams playing each other, as well as cross-pool games. These matches started on Wednesday morning, with a break in the tournament on Wednesday afternoon.
The rest of the section matches took place yesterday morning, with the semi-finals at Kingswood College yesterday afternoon. The finals of the USSA squash tournament take place at the Kingswood squash courts at 1.30pm today and Rogers encouraged the public to come and watch the top university teams in action.
