Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) lawn bowls team has claimed its second consecutive national title, winning gold at the Australian University Games (AUG) in Adelaide. CSU’s University Team Manager, Mr Nik Granger, said the team had won five of its seven pool games to qualify third for the playoffs behind the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of NSW (UNSW). “We lost to both UWA and UNSW in the pool stage, but we beat UNSW in the semi-final and the team was confident it could knock over UWA in the final,” he said. CSU first earned a place in the top-tier of the AUG in 2009 and won a first division bronze in 2010 before taking the national lawn bowls title last year. Mr Granger said the past 10 years had seen a sharp increase in the standard of competition at the games, which were now Australia’s largest annual multi-sport event. “You’ve got Olympians, Commonwealth Games medallists and state and national representatives throughout the competition,” he said. “CSU had students from our Albury-Wodonga, Wagga Wagga and Bathurst campuses competing alongside several distance education students.” Meanwhile, CSU’s Ultimate Frisbee team was awarded the ‘Spirit of the Games’ award, as voted by all 25 teams competing in the sport.