Team Solent Kestrels Basketball is Solent University's largest sports club and is rapidly becoming one of the largest basketball clubs in the UK.
The club was built on the foundation of a strong community, education and performance sport partnership, ensuring that it caters for all abilities. Solent has a strong partnership with Itchen College in Southampton. The College is an ASSE academy for basketball for both girls and boys, and is regarded as a powerhouse of college basketball in the UK. As basketball is a main focus, Itchen College recruits from across the UK to their basketball programme.
The programme at the College is headed up by two head coaches for the Kestrels: Matt Guymon - head of division one men's team and Vicky Milner - head coach of the under 14s and 16s girls' teams. The teams regularly compete in the National Colleges Final.
Children as young as three can join Team Solent Kestrels through Mini Kestrels coaching sessions. These sessions are run by the Kestrels senior players and our voluntary coaches, who work across all age groups. The under 14 girls' and boys' teams start competing in the local and regional Central Venue Leagues and can enter the first age group in the Basketball England National Leagues.
The Kestrels also have junior teams within the Basketball England National Leagues including the Kestrels under-16 girls' team, two under-16 boys' teams and an under-18 boys' team. Each junior team has a manager and a level two coach, who lead on all training sessions and organise the match days.
The Kestrels senior teams have division one men's and women's teams, a women's team in division two, and a men's team in division three. This gives the Kestrels the opportunity to develop the younger players, continuing to build a performance top level team, leading the way for the club.
Recently, Team Solent Kestrels became the first club in Basketball England history to have two teams (men’s and women's) in the National Cup Finals in the same year.
Team Solent Kestrels men's team won the BUCS Premier South in 2018, under the guidance of head coach Sylvain Donneaud. CJ Lee takes charge of the women's team, who won the National League division one in 2017. Both teams have made it to the BUCS Super8s final in recent years, and are now expanding the BUCS programme by adding a second team for each.
Find out more about the Kestrels
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