CUVC: 2024/2025 Season Recap

The 2024/2025 season was an amazing year for CUVC, filled with many team and club achievements. Each team persevered and we had some truly incredible results despite many hard-fought matches.

Beginning with our esteemed seconds’ teams, UCCW (women’s 2’s) pushed all the way to the conference cup semi-finals. They were led by their team captain Hsin Low and head coach Alex Lam. All their training and hard work paid off in their Varsity match against Oxford, where they claimed a solid victory

As for UCCM (men’s 2’s) their accolades were perhaps a little less exciting but nonetheless deserving of praise. Reaching number 3 in their tier, UCCM were led by captain Charles Zi Cai and coached by Frances B. As for Varsity, the match was hard fought but unfortunately resulted in a 3-1 loss. In more positive news, by all accounts this season was the most sociable UCCM has ever been as a team, so improvements nonetheless!

Moving on to our Blues’ teams, both teams had an incredible year and should be commended on all their effort and hard work put in.

The Blues’ Women made it all the way to the Quarter Finals in the National Women’s League, and as a non-scholarship university this is nothing short of incredible. Congratulations! In Varsity the team once again showed their might by beating Oxford. The team was helmed by star setter and captain Ksenija Belada, and coach Mikael Adolphson.

As for the Blues’ Men, they were able to reach number three in our top regional tier and took it home in the last match of Varsity with an incredibly hard-won match. Along the way they even won the Cambridge Sports Awards 2025: Sporting moment of the year due to their amazing performance and a 38-36 game. Special congratulations to star hitter Artemii Solodukhov. The team was headed by captain Aki Fujinawa and coached by Jean Jacquet.

Congratulations to every team for all your achievements! And especially a huge congratulations for our win against Oxford!

As for the club itself:

For the first time, a Beach Volleyball Varsity took place in Easter Term 2025, the beginnings of hopefully a new tradition. Players teamed up in twos to face off against Oxford, with plenty of BBQ breaks in between.

And one of our biggest achievements of the season is the astronomical growth of our development squad. Beginning the season with around 50 players, to now becoming a bustling community of over 200! Even doubling the number of sessions has barely been enough to keep up with the interest that we were receiving. It seems that volleyball in Cambridge is growing faster than ever before, and we can’t wait to be there for it next year.

And to finish, I’d like to give a special thanks to every player who won’t be continuing in CUVC for the 2025/2026 season. We stand upon the shoulders of giants.

Micah Hayward