President's Report 2025

2025 started off with a bang at the Sydney Uni Sports Awards night, where the club had nominees in categories celebrating a successful 2024. This included outgoing head coach Mitch Liddle, who was deservedly recognised for his tenure managing the club and its strong on field performance. It was tricky to win awards at Sydney Uni when the period fell on an Olympic year, but yours truly won the Male Administrator of the Year. The uni recognised what I have been harping on about for some time - the ongoing commitment from more and more behind the scenes of SUBC have led to greater member numbers (over 100 members for the first time in living memory, with a third of the club Sydney Uni students), ongoing success on the field, and set the table for the resumption of intervarsity events. 

The increase in student involvement piggy-backed off our successful summer team trial, picking up momentum at Welcome Week and those engaging with our social media. A key part of what makes this club tick is the input from the current student cohort with guidance from a few old heads. I’d like to thank those who were formally involved on the committee - Ash Egan (Secretary), Verdell Peng (Treasurer), Jean Ahn (Intervarsity Co-Ordinator), Toshi Iwai Wong (Student Liaison), Alicia Ahn (Board Member), and Sam Zhang.

2025 brought in a new head coach of the club, Rob Giallombardo, who took on the role after many successful years of coaching 2nd grade. A transition year, Rob managed to unify a diverse membership and instill a club wide commitment to hard work, with hordes of players completing drills on Oval 1 on Wednesday nights during the season.

On the field, expanded player numbers saw 6 teams take part across two winter leagues. 4 of 6 teams made semi finals, with 3rd grade making the grand final and 1st grade making the semi finals for the first time post COVID. The 3rd grade team fought valiantly in the loss, looking like a come from behind win was on the cards after a rocky start before Quakers Hill again pulled away for a 12-6 win. The club saw a mix of youth and experience taking out awards at our annual presentation night held at our sponsor pub, the Annandale Hotel. Outside of our regular seasons, our student intervarsity team got off the ground for the first time since COVID. The team of students went to Melbourne for a weekend to play against a handful of Melbourne universities, losing key players to injury and a little bit of tournament steam in their grand final loss to Monash University 7-1.

From a culture point of view, our annual community day raised over $1000 for Child Action Lanka, with a packed Petersham Oval and the Sydney Uni Cheer squad in foul territory seeing 1st grade pick up a solid win. 2025 also brought in the Community Supporters Membership, which gave a more in depth avenue to connect with the club and learn about the current crop of student athletes and rep players, as well as game day perks. If you'd like info about the 2026 member package, see here. Speaking of our current crop of students, we had three named scholarships recipients in the Elite Athlete Program and were able to award the Vance Borland Equity scholarship to give a player a chance to engage further with Uni Sport. This year the recipient was Lokesh Gunasekaran who was a great example of the tremendous buy-in many of our new uni students had on and off the field. 

Thanks to other board members, including in particular Jasper Odgers, and thanks to recipient of the Stump for 2025, Anthony Carroll, for the extra support they've given me over the year. They’ve continued to go above and beyond to ensure the club’s success into 2026.

Looking forward to what 2026 has in store for the club.

Ben Warnock

President

Sydney Uni Baseball Club

Est 1904