Stirling athletes go global

As well as further national titles and international selections in tennis, football and rugby, this week sees Stirling athletes competing across the world from PyeongChang to California.

Here are the latest sporting headlines.

Curling

MSc Performance Coaching student, Kyle Waddell, won his first match as an Olympian as he and his GB teammates came out on top of a tense affair against Switzerland in the first session of the men’s curling at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. The team went on to narrowly lose against reigning Olympic champions, Canada, in the following session and will now take on Japan in their third round robin match.

Golf

Golf scholars, Gemma Batty and Chloe Goadby, have been selected for the Scotland team travelling to South Africa to play in a number of top level amateur events as well as an international match against their South African counterparts.

Fourth-year student, Gemma Batty, is in South Africa with the Scottish national golf team.

In the men’s game, Robert Foley, Michael Lawrie, Alasdair McDougall, Laird Shepherd and Jordan Sundborg are currently in Coachella Valley, California, preparing for Stanford University’s Prestige Collegiate tournament which features many of the top National Collegiate Athletic Association Division One golf teams.

Football

Whilst there were defeats for both the men’s and women’s first teams, the u20s enjoyed a 4-1 victory away to Burntisland.

Off the field, fourteen Stirling footballers have been selected to represent the men’s and women’s Scottish Student Football teams.

The men’s squad are due to take on League Two side, Montrose, as part of a programme to prepare for a match against the Republic of Ireland in mid-April. The Stirling students selected are:

Kieran Hall; Ross Kellock; Lewis Hunter; Rory MacEwan; Alex Webb.

Meanwhile, the women’s squad have already taken on Hamilton Accies in a warm-up match as part of their preparations for this year’s Home Nations tournament. There are nine Stirling students involved in this year’s squad including:

Ciara Bonner; Rachel Donaldson; Demi Falconer; Rebecca Foote; Chloe Logan; Beth McKay; Katy Morris; Kirsten Reilly; Ellie Simpson.

Ross Kellock, Kieran Hall, Lewis Hunter, Rory MacEwan and Alex Webb have been named in this year's Scottish Students football squad.

Rugby

Following the Six Nations debuts of Siobhan Cattigan and Megan Kennedy, fellow Stirling rugby players, Fergus Bradbury, James Couper, Luke Earl-Wright and Owen Jarvie have been selected for the Scottish Student Rugby squad that will face Scotland U19s at the end of February and compete against Irish Students in early March. 

Tennis

University of Stirling tennis coach, Nick Rosenzwig, continued his rich vein of form as he claimed the men’s singles title at the Scottish National Indoor Championships in Glasgow. Having defeated current Stirling scholar, Kieran Macarty in the semi-final, Rosenzweig won the final against Heriot-Watt University athlete, Bruce Strachan, who had earlier beaten another Stirling student, Scott MacAulay, in the other semi-final.

However, it wasn’t all near-misses for Macarty and MacAulay as they teamed up to win the men’s doubles event.

Commenting on the week’s action, the University of Stirling’s Head of Performance Sport, David Bond, said: “Student sport offers a number of fantastic opportunities for athletes who put in the hard work and dedication required to compete at the top level.

“It’s great to see as many athletes receive Scottish Student call-ups and we hope they have a great experience being part of the national setup.

“Kyle competing in PyeongChang is an obvious highlight of the week and we’ll all be keeping a close eye on how he and his teammates get on.”