Making its return in 2022 after a three-year hiatus, 100 student athletes from La Trobe University have headed over to the Western Australian capital to compete in the Uni Nationals competition across 10 different sports, including Badminton, Basketball, Cycling, Fencing, Football, Lacrosse, Netball, Swimming, Taekwondo and Volleyball.
Our men’s basketball team had two huge wins on their first day; comfortably defeating the University of New England 92-24, before breezing past the University of Southern Queensland, 79-37. Meanwhile, the women’s team started off strongly by defeating the University of Western Australia 46-36, although they unfortunately couldn’t follow up in their second game of the day, losing to Monash University, 16-26.
Our mixed netball team also had a blistering start to the Uni Nationals competition, easily beating Charles Sturt University in their first match. The final score was 63-5.
The La Trobe women’s soccer team suffered a first-up 0-2 loss at the start at the hands of the University of Sydney, before bouncing back later in the day against the University of Newcastle with a 2-1 win.
It was a tough start to Uni Nationals for our La Trobe Badminton teams. Our men’s badminton team were defeated 2-3 by the University of Sydney and 1-4 by the University of New South Wales, while our women’s team were also defeated by the University of New South Wales, with the final score of that match being 0-5.
Our lacrosse team also had a difficult start to their campaign, losing 3-7 to the University of New South Wales before also being defeated 11-22 by Adelaide University.
There were mixed results from our La Trobe Volleyball teams, with our men’s team defeating the University of Wollongong 2-1 in their first game. However, our women’s team was unfortunately defeated by the University of New South Wales, with the final score being 1-2.
Finally, our La Trobe fencers Jacob Ohrt and Melody Lee both started their Uni Nationals campaigns. Ohrt finished 15th in the Men’s Foil rankings and 21st in the Men’s Sabre rankings, while Lee finished 8th in the Women’s Foil rankings and 4th in the Women’s Sabre rankings.
For daily updates and recaps throughout the 2022 UniSport Nationals, stay tuned to the La Trobe Sport Facebook and Instagram channels.
Brandon Patane is a third-year Bachelor of Media and Communications (Sports Journalism) student at La Trobe University. You can follow him and see more of his work on Twitter @brandonp_13.
