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Nottingham Varsity Series
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Nottingham Varsity Series: Two Sides to the Story

For those not familiar with sports at the university level in England, they have what’s called a Varsity Series, where two universities compete head-to-head in a various amount of sports and competitions.

2015 marked the 4th Annual Nottingham Varsity Series, between rivals and neighbors, the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University. The games are spread over a two week span, and between a Monday afternoon’s dodgeball showdown and Tuesday’s men’s and women’s futsal matches, Nottingham took home the lacrosse trophy in a 16-10 defeat of Trent.

Filmaker Guy Ellis was on the scene for the event and captured a rare edit from both sides of the match. Both of these fantastic videos should be watched from beginning to end to further grasp the lacrosse scene in England.

We reached out to our overseas friends in order to give you a firsthand experience from both sides of the ball. Let’s start with the victors, Nottingham Uni.

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University of Nottingham

We went into the game knowing we were going to have a very tough match, every time [the two teams] play it’s a very physical game, and we knew they were going to come out hard. That’s exactly what they did, we found ourselves 3-0 down after a few minutes, but we didn’t panic as we knew we had the skill to come back.

We then started to dominate on the face-off and were coming up with a lot of the ground balls, and this is what helped us get back on track. We started improving defensively and started closing gaps and this allowed us to play our game going forward.

Our goals came from [the team] moving the ball quickly to find the space with some great finishing from Nick Agriasani, Kam Bumpus, Tyler Wilcox, and Dan Atkinson.

Once we got back in the lead, we made sure we were just steady in how we played and kept the lead going, and when the final whistle came we were extremely happy to end the season on such a great win.

Cheers,

Joshua Dodd, President

Nottingham Trent University

Regardless of winning last year’s varsity, we knew this year was going to be tougher than ever, with Uni narrowly losing the championship final to Durham.

We were in good form after securing promotion and came out guns-blazing from the first whistle. Pavitt, our new face-off prospect, was beating American and former NCAA D2 from Le Moyne, Kam Bampus, and with the early possessions we took the lead with 3 goals to 0.

Once Uni reached their top gear, we just didn’t have the answers as our 3 goal lead was quickly diminished.

The game was all to play for in the last quarter, we ended up 13-10 down when we realized it just wasn’t our day. We had 2 consecutive goals disallowed which then resulted in Nottingham scoring their final 3 to make it 16-10.

The hard work we put in off the field would match no other with the strength and conditioning program we have set up at NTU. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to finish my 5 years with.

Paddy Atkinson, Midfield

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Get the entire rundown on the game from Impact Nottingham and don’t miss the 2016 Nottingham Varsity Series if you’re anywhere in the area!