Xander Howgate believes “the key to the teams preparation has been consistency and perfecting our game each session”.
The 22 year-old exclaims that “As a team we have strong individuals who can win us a game and win us Varsity this year, but we are focusing on being a team and bringing each other up”.
“We are confident due to easily winning last year at their ground, but we’ve got to stay hungry so that we can get the result again for Varsity 2025”.
The team haven’t had the best preparation for the Varsity fixture as they have “not had the best run in the league but we are still strong and determined to get the result and win”.
Howgate is in his third and final year of University and “with it being my last year, i’m eager for us to go and put on a show and play well for the University to see out mine and some of the other lads’ last games for Glos, and I’m excited and can’t wait to showcase how much I’ve developed this year, and have all my hard work show in a game”.
As a club and a society, Howgate is certain that the “girls team has improved so much since winning a set in their last game and are determined to win this year after losing last year so its revenge for them and for us hopefully back to back wins”.
Howgate believes he has an “influence on the squad because I’m quite loud and confident which i guess can be seen as a good and bad thing, but i feel like that helps the rest of the team and especially the first years who might not be as confident in a game”.
Xander was full of emotion as “I’ve had so many great memories with the University and playing Volleyball and since leaving football and joining volleyball I’ve really found my place”
“I’m desperate to see off my University career in a good way and hopefully get the result we are all hoping for as the league is pretty much done and dusted and we haven’t done great, but this is the game everyone is waiting for and the atmosphere will be amazing so hopefully it will go well”.
