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15 September 2021 | Story Jóhann Thormählen | Photo Charl Devenish
The University of the Free State (UFS) netball team was honoured by UFS management at a special celebration. The side won a fourth Varsity Netball title and the UFS has now been champion in 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2021.

Set goals for yourself, commit to it, and give everything to achieve them.

According to Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), this is what the UFS netball team did and why it is an example for the Kovsie community.

He celebrated the team’s achievement of winning Varsity Netball for a record fourth time and extending the run of the UFS as the most successful team in the tournament.

The Kovsies convincingly beat Maties 55-39 in the final to be crowned champions. It was the biggest victory margin in a final, and they did it after losing to Maties (46-54) in the first round.

Prof Petersen and his management group honoured Burta de Kock, the UFS Head Coach, and her team during a special celebration on 13 September 2021.

Working as an outfit

He said the side’s determination is a lesson to others.

“Once you have decided that these are my objectives and you commit yourself to achieving them, that is all you focus on.”

“It will always be possible if you put everything in and you showed it. Thank you for doing this.”

He praised the team for building the UFS brand. 

“You really work as an outfit. What I saw of the players was a right attitude when they play the game.”

Everything made easy

Sikholiwe (Sne) Mdletshe, the UFS captain, thanked her team’s management, the UFS, and its lecturers.

“We really want to thank the university for putting so much into us. It gives us a lot of resources.

“Some tests had to be written while we were in the bubble and our lecturers made that easy for us.”

She said the players never take the effort for granted. “The UFS makes everything easy to go out there and play netball – the sport we have been playing since we were little kids.”

DB Prinsloo, Director of KovsieSport, is immensely proud of the team.

“We even lost one of our best players in the first match, Chanel Vrey, due to injury. We have to take off our hats to the Kovsie netball team.”


News Archive

New yeast named after Bloemfontein
2011-11-21

 
Martie Smit, prof Jacobus Albertyn and Carlien Pohl.
Photo: Stefan Lotter

A second living organism was named after Bloemfontein, adding to the fact that the University of the Free State (UFS) has the largest yeast collection in the Southern Hemisphere.

In an article in the highly acclaimed scientific journal, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, three lecturers from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, at the UFS, Dr Carlien Pohl, Prof. Martie Smit and Prof. Jacobus Albertyn, describe four new yeast species.
 
One of these species, isolated from pine needles from Bloemfontein, has been named after this city and will be known as Rhodotorula bloemfonteinensis. ‘Rhodo’ refers to the redness of these types of yeast. This makes this yeast only the second living organism to be named after Bloemfontein. The other is a mite (Pilogalumna bloemfonteinensis), which was described in 1972.
 
In short, yeast is a micro-organism that is part of the fungi family. Prof. Albertyn, “The most common of these are the bakers’ yeast, of which the bloemfonteinensis forms part.”
 
Among these four species they discovered, the Rhodotorula pini was also discovered on the Bloemfontein Campus of the UFS during December 1995.
 
“The UFS now has the largest yeast collection in the Southern Hemisphere. All over the world, science is busy researching the field of bio-diversity. This promotes the bio-diversity at the UFS,” Prof. Albertyn says.

 

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