Work started early on the morning of Sunday 1st May at St Andrews beach. Entry for the 6th Scottish University Beach Volleyball Tournament was 18 men’s 2s and 15 women’s 2s from seven Universities. This meant it was the most successful Scottish University Beach event to date, and is also likely to be one of the biggest beach volleyball events of the year in Scotland.
Weather conditions were sunny but windy, as play started shortly after 10am. In the women’s pool competition it was tight., however all the Universities represented, managed to get a team into the knock out stage. Aberdeen got two teams through as pool winners and Stirling went through as winners of pool 1 beating the top seeded Edinburgh team.
Semi Finals — St Andrew vs. Dundee Aberdeen vs. Stirling
Two local teams met in the first semi final. After an easy first set for St Andrews (Hemmers & Dennis) the Dundee (Velten & Versteeg) team picked up their game in the second set and took the match closer. However St Andrews got through to the final where they met the Aberdeen (Lieber & Karpa) team who had shown considerable skill in a convicing 2 sets win over Stirling (Clarkson & Reidlinger).
In the first set of the women’s final, the St Andrews pair were solid and frustrated the pair from Aberdeen. However in the second set the Aberdeen pair appeared to have found some extra energy and although the set was close, they won, to take the match to a third set. Aberdeen took the momentum from the second set into the final set and won 15 to 9.
1st set — St Andrews — 21 Aberdeen — 17
2nd set — St Andrews – 18 Aberdeen — 21
3rd set — St Andrews – 9 Aberdeen — 15
In the men’s competition there was strong entry from Edinburgh and Strathclyde Universities. As with the women’s competition, all Universities were represented in the knock out stages with all five of Strathclyde’s men’s team making it through.
Semi Finals — Strathclyde vs. Dundee Edinburgh vs. Edinburgh
The first semi final saw the top seeded Edinburgh pair of Puggioni & Petrakos beat another Edinburgh pair (Tully and Hardy) to win a place in the finals. The focus of the second semi finals was which University would face them in the finals. The pair from Dundee (Chrisistomou & Klevze) had been very convincing throughout the day and in the second men’s semi final they met the Strathclyde pair of (Ho & Reid). Although the Dundee pair played great volleyball the pair from Strathclyde had played together in last years Scottish Beach Tour and this experience helped keep them in the match. As the game went on Strathclyde’s extra playing experience started to count for more and eventually gave them the advantage to win this close match, and a place in the final against the top seeded Edinburgh pair (including one of last years winners).
In the finals both Strathclyde and Edinburgh were able to play fantastic volleyball and a large crowd gathered to watch in near perfect conditions. Throughout the final the Strathclyde pair although playing great volleyball weren’t able to link as well as Edinburgh. This meant for the second year running that Paolo Puggioni and Edinburgh were able to collect winners’ medals. The Strathclyde pair however were also able to pick up winners medals as before the medals for the beach were presented the Strathclyde men team were presented with medals for winning the Scottish Universities Men’s division 2.
| Women’s Beach Results | Men’s Beach Results |
| 1st – Aberdeen University Lillian Lieber & Larissa Karpa | 1st – Edinburgh University Paolo Puggioni & George Patrakos |
| 2nd – St Andrew’s Carina Hemmers & Ashley Dennis | 2nd – Strathclyde University RJ Ho & Bob Reid |
| 3rd – Dundee university Elena Velten & Sharon Versteeg | 3rd – Edinburgh University Stuart Parker & Glenn Robison |
| 4th – Stirling University Emma Clarkson & Taylor Reidlinger | 4th – Dundee University George Chrisostomov & Urh Klevze |
