​Sport teams from Stellenbosch University (SU) will travel to various destinations across South Africa this weekend to participate in the annual USSA tournaments, while Maties Surfing came second overall in the USSA competition held at Victoria Bay from 22-24 June.

From 4-8 July, teams will represent SU in badminton (Stellenbosch), basketball (Johannesburg), cycling (Potchefstroom), golf (Port Elizabeth), gymnastics (Stellenbosch), hockey (Johannesburg), netball (Cape Town), rugby (East London) and squash (Stellenbosch).

Last year, teams from SU were overall winners in two of the tournaments they competed in and runners-up in three. Maties Cycling and Maties Badminton won their respective tournaments, while Maties Surfing, Maties Gymnastics and Maties Hockey's women's team all came second. The hockey men competed in the play-off for the bronze medal and beat Kovsies 4-0 to take third place, while Maties Rugby and Maties Netball both ended fourth.

Hawies Fourie, Maties Rugby coach, said their expectations in terms of the USSA tournament were very realistic.

"Maties want to perform well in every single match they play. Our group of players includes only four players that played regularly in the Varsity Cup. We are using the USSA tournament to give some of the youngsters exposure and to see if they can compete at the next level."

Paul Revington, Maties Hockey High Performance manager, said: "Obviously, Maties always want to win. It makes more sense to continually focus on these performance goals to get to the end goal. While we focus on these goals we will always strive to have a good degree of enjoyment and fun. I am very excited to see how the women's team is going to play, because they are capable of playing well and consistently. From the men's team perspective we would like to produce five consistent performances. There is a lot of ability in the men's squad but nothing can be achieved without consistency of effort, hard work and internal self-belief. I am excited for this group too because they are also very close to putting all the ingredients together in a single event."

Max Sullivan of Maties Cycling said their team is pretty confident heading into the competition.

"We have a good support structure and a solid eight-man team. We also have four riders that are more than capable of winning the yellow jersey, so we have a good set of cards in hand. The goal is definitely to defend our title, winning the team competition and the yellow jersey."

Nicky Giliomee, also from Maties Cycling, said the two women in the team are mountain-bikers with not much experience on the road.

"However, we've trained hard together, getting advice and help from our men's team to try and get a better understanding of how road tactics work. We are confident we will manage with the resources and knowledge we now have. The altitude is definitely a challenge for us coming from the sea. We hope to do the best we can," she added.

Anri Schonees, captain of the Maties Badminton team, said it is always difficult to defend a title because of the added pressure.

"But we are very positive and we are going to do our best. We also want to meet new people and enjoy ourselves."

Ilhaam Groenewald, Chief Director: Maties Sport, wished the athletes and teams participating in the upcoming USSA tournaments all the best.

"Maties Sport wants to achieve a dominant position within focus sports at tertiary, regional, national and international level and the USSA competitions offer us an opportunity to measure our performance against that of our peers."