UK Student Archery Association

League Catch Up pt 3/4 - SUS [25/Mar/09]

Reviewed below are SUS H2H event, the last 2 SUS League Matches and the Indoor Championships. Edinburgh ran out convincing winners in the League and Championships. Unlike BUTTS and NEUAL, the SUS Indoor Championships is a free-standing competition which does not contribute to the league standings. Also at the Indoor Champs Steve Wicks confirmed that he would not be continuing as SUS Co-ordinator after this, his fourth season in charge.

Dundee hosted the third SUS H2H, deliberately scheduled to take place the week before BUTC. This competition has a Portsmouth ranking round in the morning. The field is divided into pairs, top with bottom, 2nd with 2nd bottom etc. Those pairs are then ranked against each other and shoot knock out 18 arrow (9 each) H2H matches against each other. Only six points separated the top seven pairs going in to the head to head in a noisy competition which produced lots of close matches.

Eventual champions were Jin Hang Chen and Matthew Hull (Heriot-Watt/Napier) who saved their best performance for the final beating Paul Sandow and Matt Beattie (Dundee N/Abertay) 152-141. With 14 pairs, there were 7 matches, with the highest scoring losers also progressing into the last 8. Joe Mathieson and Gary Paton (Heriot-Watt/Dundee N) were the highest scoring losers in round 1 (against Chen and Hull), but won bronze after losing on a 2 arrow (1 each) shoot off against Sandow and Beattie in the semi.

Heriot-Watt hosted the penultimate SUS League Match which clashed with BUTC. This left Edinburgh in the unusual position of being in two places at once and meant that Dundee (and also Heriot-Watt themselves) couldn't attend BUTC. Edinburgh ran out very easy winners in the senior team with 2198, with four female archers all around 550, led by Kyshiea Steele's 552. Dundee finished on 1964, clear of Heriot-Watt's 1926. The novice team match was a title decider with Edinburgh and Dundee both unbeaten. In the end Edinburgh had too much for their rivals, with 1585 (including 548 from Cindy Law) producing a near 200 point win. Dundee were second in the match and finished second in the novice table as a result.

The final league match was theoretically Napier's home fixture, but Strathclyde were the physical hosts, Heriot-Watt the third team. This match amounted to a shoot off for third in the senior table, unless Napier won with a total in excess of 2048 which would mean they could overhaul Dundee in second. Napier did win, and by 180 over Strathclyde who edged Heriot-Watt into third. Napier's winning score however was 2044, just 4 points shy of what they needed, a remarkable achievement for a club with no indoor venue. In the novice match, a win for Heriot-Watt meant they finished third in the SUS novice league.

SUS Indoor Champs were in St Andrews and Edinburgh's SUS strength squad rattled up a total of 2252 for victory. Hosts St Andrews shot 2070 to wrap up second with the highest SUS score shot not including Edinburgh. Dundee were third also breaking 2000 with 2029. Milos Rydval (St Andrews) and Eilidh Marshall (Dundee) each shot 540. Jenny Jeppsson (Edinburgh) won ladies recurve with 581, but was not included in the Edinburgh team score. Erik Rowbotham was though and won gents recurve very easily with 575 with Lizzie Williams second lady and also on teh Edinburgh team with 566. Edinburgh won the novice team by 200 from Dundee, mirroring the results from their league match three weeks earlier, both sides up about 50 points, 1631 to 1437, Napier grabbing third place. Edinburgh's winning team was Cindy Law 547, Anni van Nieuwenhuizen 543 and Alexander Gilliland 541. Dundee's Alexandre Foito 514 was the top other novice.

Steve Wicks also announced that he will not be continuing as SUS Co-ordinator after four years in the job. In 2005, SUS was a league in disarray with one club (Robert Gordon's) having just folded and most of the others in poor shape and barely attending the national tournaments. In comparison, BUCS Indoors 2009 saw over 50 SUS archers competing. Wicks also added the SUS H2H event in 2007, now one of the highlights of the SUS calendar and during his tenure there has been a slow but steady increase in the average standards on show in SUS. Claire Levy is also not continuing as SUS Student Co-ordinator after two years ably assisting, so it will be an all new team charged with making sure that SUS continues to progress.