UK Student Archery Association

Good times for Southampton, Reading [24/Feb/10]

Both Southampton and Reading had excellent BUTCs. Having qualified in 11th and 13th both clubs would have expected to make the second round before likely defeats against higher ranked opposition. However having overcome Sheffield and Kent A those second round matches were against Essex A and Imperial. Two wins later and both clubs were in their first BUTC quarter-finals, with Reading going on to finish fourth. In fact at BUTC 2010 Southampton and Reading had a 4-0 record against clubs from SEAL and a 1-3 record against clubs outside SEAL.

Perhaps it shouldn't be so suprising that both sides recently picked up wins in SEAL itself, although neither collected maximum points in traditional fashion.

Southampton v Kent v Brunel was scheduled in January but had to be postponed because of the extreme bad weather at that time. The match was rearragned as a postal. Despite a top score in the match of 583 from Kent's Sam Perkins, Southampton ran out winners, falling nine short of 2200. Brad Keogh was Southampton's top scorer with 565. Kent's total for second place in the match 2076, enough to beat Brunel who scored 1751. In the equivalent novice match, Kent notched 1467, helped by James Wilkinson 541 and Mrak Cheung 513 - both Wilkinson and Cheung were on Kent's senior team score too. Southampton and Brunel fought it out for second with the south coast side coming out on top 1220-1198.

Reading v Essex v Kent has already been reviewed in a previous editorial, with Essex scoring 2101 to claim a narrow win over Reading's 2092, with Kent in third place on 2037. However an error meant that Julie Chenery (Reading) was accidentally docked 10 points when the scores (and therefore team results) were being put together. When you lose a match by 9 points, having 10 points reinstated comes in very handy indeed. The result, close before now becomes a cliff hanger, but Reading have 2102 against Essex's 2101 - the SEAL table has been updated to reflect the new result.

Imperial have the only unblemished record in the league so far, but Surrey and Southampton are right behind in the event of an Imperial defeat. Imperial played Surrey already but have yet to face Southampton. The next scheduled SEAL match sees Kent at home to Imperial and London on Sun 28th Feb.

[Additional paragraph added 26th Feb] London v Reading v Brunel is now on Sat 6th Mar and Imperial v Southampton v Essex is now on Sun 7th Mar.