Dreams of victory on the beach

POLOKWANE  – THEY only started to compete last year but the Limpopo Beach Volleyball Club is fast becoming a household name in the beach volleyball fraternity.

Comprising of two players, Maureen Mnisi and Charity Baloyi, both students at the University of Limpopo’s Turfloop Campus, the Limpopo Beach Volleyball Club has achieved what has been a dream for teams with many years of existence.

The club recently pocketed R1 800 for reaching the quarterfinals of the Flying Fish National Beach Volleyball Series’ Polokwane leg, which was held at the Mall of the North recently.

To qualify for this national event, Mnisi and Baloyi had to work extra hard to secure a spot.

Minisi and her partner Baloyi are the current champions of the University of Limpopo internal beach volleyball league.

The duo are also the champions of the Capricorn District and their top form helped them win the Limpopo eliminations, which gave them the go ahead to represent the province in the Flying Fish National Beach Volleyball Series for the very first time. Last year, Mnisi and Baloyi represented the University of Limpopo in the Varsity Sports and University Sports South Africa (USSA) tournaments.

The coach of the Limpopo Beach Volleyball club, Jacob Thamaga, said he was very proud of his players.

He said many critics never believed him when he said he would turn Mnisi into a beach volleyball star.

Thamaga said Mnisi looked weak and her stature made people doubt that she could play the game.

“I believed in them. I was patient with them and the results of hard work are now showing. There is still a long way to go and we still need to learn more about the game, but what we have achieved so far is overwhelming”, a proud Thamaga said. Asked what took to achieve such a huge success in less than a year, Thamaga said discipline is key in the game.

Mnisi, a 21-year-old LLB third year student, said she had been playing volleyball for eight years now but only started to take the sport seriously last year.

“I just played for fun and did not have a specific position. Now I have found out that, although I am a utility player, I am more lethal when I am playing centre”, the soft-spoken Mnisi said.

Baloyi on the other hand is mostly concerned about the low standards of the beach volleyball courts that they train on.

She said she was hopeful that university, municipality or the department of sport, arts and culture would soon make provisions for better beach volleyball courts for players to acclimatise with standard beach volleyball courts.

“The sand we play on during national competitions is very heavy and we struggle to jump. Sometimes we lose due to conditions, not because we are not good enough,” the 22-year-old BSc environmental and resources studies student said.

The Limpopo Beach Volleyball club is fully funded by the University of Limpopo and are destined for Bloemfontein where they will make their second appearance in the Flying Fish National Beach Volleyball Series from 5-8 December.

The club will be participating in the USSA Beach Volleyball from 28 to 30 November in Durban and Thamaga said he believed their time to compete for top honours have come.

“It is time that we win some silverware. We need to finish within the top eight in the USSA games to qualify for Varsity Sports in April next year. We need to be at our best and we are confident we will achieve all our aspirations.”