Five of the best for Banyana 

UWC Ladies Football continues to contribute to the national sporting effort – no fewer than five former and current UWC Ladies Football players have been selected this week for the national senior women’s team, Banyana Banyana.

Current UWC Ladies Football Club attacking midfielder, Leandra Smeda, striker Thembi Kgatlana, as well as former goalkeeper Kaylin Swart, midfielder Kelso Peskin and forward Jermaine Seoposenwe – who are all pursuing their careers in the United States – were named among coach Vera Pauw’s 23-member squad.

The team will compete in the Rio Olympic qualifiers against Gabon on Saturday, 23 May, (away at Stade Augustin Monedan in Libreville, Gabon) and in a return leg a week later at Dobsonville Stadium in Johannesburg.

Smeda, who hails from Veldrift along the West Coast, is an experienced Banyana Banyana member, having earned 36 caps and scored 13 goals. She was registered for a postgraduate diploma in sport development and peace last year, and helped UWC to reach the semi-finals of the University Sport South Africa competition in December 2014.

The Mitchell’s Plain-born Seoposenwe has been a prolific forward for the national team and has earned 25 caps, losing her place through injury last year. She completed her first year in BCom Accounting at UWC before leaving to pursue both her academic and sporting careers at Stanford University in the United States in late 2013.

Peskin, from Bellville, had been a key member of the UWC Ladies team for the past three years, before leaving South Africa late last year to pursue her career at Tyler Junior College in Texas, also in the United States. Her call-up to Banyana Banyana is subsequent to representing both the national Under 17 and Under 20 teams in the past.

The Port Elizabeth-born Swart has also been a member of the junior national teams. She was doing her BA degree when she left for the USA in March 2014 to start a four-year scholarship at the AIB College of Business in Des Moines.