The British University and College Sports (BUCS) season had one final story to tell on Wednesday afternoon as two more De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) sides clinched league titles.
Men’s Basketball 1st and Men’s Football 3rd both stole the show as they brought their seasons to a close with title-deciding clashes.
The victories take the total number of BUCS league titles for #TeamDMU to five this year, joining Netball 1st, Men’s Tennis 1st and Women’s Hockey 1st in the history books, contributing to the most successful sporting season for DMU to date.
The titles also come a week after DMU Men’s Rugby 1st defeated Northampton to claim the BUCS Midlands Conference Plate at Loughborough University.
The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Leisure Centre hosted the winner takes all clash for Men’s Basketball 1st on Wednesday evening against Nottingham University 3rd.
And the DMU Griffins never trailed throughout the whole match, taking a convincing 76-67 win over their opposition.
Captain of the side and DMU Health Studies BA (Hons) student Karlz Balbuena said: “The feeling of winning the league in these circumstances on the final day of the season is amazing.
“We’ve come up against a very good Nottingham team and we’ve proved that teamwork is the key to success, by making our hard work all season pay off.
“Everyone in the team works for each other, we hustle the opposition and make them panic and as individuals we’re not selfish. If there is a player in a better position we will give them the ball.”
The team were defeated in their opening game of the season back in November, but since then they have gone a whole season unbeaten, winning the title by an impressive nine points.
Coach Igor Mirkovic said: “The hard work of the whole team paid off in the end, after the concern that we were playing against players from a higher team.
“I used that anger to rally up my team and ensure that we grafted for every point, beat them to every ball and got into their heads. It worked.
“I am so proud of this team who have worked for this all season long, working hard in training on offense and defence play and coming together when it matters.”
The team face the University of Leicester in their Varsity fixture on Saturday evening at Leicester Arena, home to the DMU partners the Leicester Riders Basketball Club and Coach Igor is confident they can claim a victory.
“We’ve been looking at where Leicester are now and we think we have a very good chance.
“I think if we play with confidence like we have tonight and hustle the opposition from start to finish we can produce something special.
“I am quietly confident, but we won’t get ahead of ourselves.”
Elsewhere, Men’s Football 3rd smashed Birmingham City University 3rd 7-1 to secure the Midlands Division 5D title.
Callum Baker scored five goals to take his season tally to 28 ahead of their Varsity fixture on Wednesday 22 March at Stoughton Road Playing Fields, The University of Leicester.
The side were also one of four #TeamDMU sides to reach the BUCS Midlands Cup semi-finals, but were defeated to prevent them securing a final spot.
They will be hoping to take their incredible league form into Varsity next week.
You can keep with events right across the Varsity series through our Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat accounts, and follow the story using #DareToWin and #TeamDMU on social media.
Posted on Thursday 16 March 2017