Home advantage and past experience will hopefully count as the UWC Beach Volleyball Club seeks to defend their Varsity Beach Volleyball title when they host the tournament this week.

The UDUBS women’s team has won the tournament twice and has been on fire in the University Sport South Africa (USSA) games and the recent Flying Fish National Beach Volleyball Series – experiences that will come in handy in this year’s edition of the Varsity Beach Volleyball competition taking place on 22-23 April. Six universities will be competing for the honours.

Bejancka Della has played a central role in UWC’s previous triumphs, and believes her team, consisting of Liezle Peterson, Bassie Eulenda and the 2013 Steers Most Valuable Player Kayla-Lee Provins, has what it takes to come out victorious once again.

“I have been playing beach volleyball for about 10 years. We have a variety of top-class coaches to advise us, and the team has been growing stronger and performing well together,” says Della, a second-year law student.

Playing at home and television coverage of the event will obviously add more impetus to make the competition more exciting and put more pressure on participants.

“We will be forced to play our best game to win. Television coverage will be a great boost for the team and for the University, so supporters should come out in big numbers to back the team.”

Ranked 6th overall in South Africa, Della started playing Beach Volleyball for social reasons and found the sport to be a good stress reliever, also helping to keep her fit.

UWC finished unbeaten in the 2013 Varsity Beach Volleyball competition in Camps Bay (the competition took a break in 2014) and also walked away with three of the four individual awards, with Della being named FNB Player of the Tournament.

The tournament kicks-off at 11h30 on both days.