Shania-Lee Swart is possibly at the moment the only Tuks athlete whose name appears in the Guinness Book of World Records. 

She seemingly has perfected the art to “bliksem” cricket balls. Playing for Mpumalanga against Eastern Gauteng she scored 160 runs (80 balls) in a T20-game. That in itself is quite an achievement, but her Guinness Book of Records fame is because none of her teammates was able to score a single run. 

Swart scored all of the runs. After their allotted 20 overs Mpumalanga had 169 runs on the scoreboard. Nine runs came from extras. Swart’s team won by 41 runs after she also impacted as a bowler taking 2/24 with her off-spin deliveries. 

In the same tournament, she scored 289 runs in a 50 overs game. 

From when she first touched a cricket bat playing with her brother and dad “serious matches in Witbank” her goal was to play for the South African women’s team, but somehow she ended being snubbed. Painful as it was Swart accepted her fate, but being passionate about sports, she immediately looked for a new challenge.

Riaan van der Merwe (Tuks Sevens Women’s coach) convinced her to give running with the rugby ball and tackling a go. She played her first game for Tuks yesterday when the team took on the University of Johannesburg. 

Van der Merwe was full of praise for the way she debuted. His only criticism was that her play on defense still needs to improve, but it is not a big problem.

According to Swart, she enjoyed the challenge of trying to outfox her opponents with the ball in hand. Being tackled and getting slightly dirty did not faze her at all.

The Tuks and women’s teams played three games. Tuks was victorious in all of them, winning 56-0, 28-0 and 43-22. The results should be no surprise. 

Libbie Janse van Rensburg (captain) claims to know when last Tuks lost against any of the other university teams. They had not lost since she has been playing for them.

If Van Rensburg can have one dream come true, it would be for varsity women’s sevens teams to get to play the main curtain raiser before the Varsity Cup-games.

“Sevens rugby is an Olympic sport. I think there is no better way to market women's sevens rugby than during the Varsity Cup Tournament.”

Van Rensburg and her teammate’s skills have not gone unnoticed. They have been invited to play the main curtain-raiser at Loftus when the Bulls take on the Stormers in the Vodacom Super Rugby-series. 

Tuks will face-off against Soweto. According to Van der Merwe, the team includes quite a few Lions players.

It has also been confirmed that Tuks will again play in two tournaments in France; Centrale 7’s and the Stanislas 7’s. 

Last year Van Rensburg received the player of the tournament at the Centrale Tournament award while Tuks won the Stanislas Tournament beating quite a few national teams.