UK Student Archery Association

Nottingham and Napier nail wins [27/Feb/10]

Nottingham won the final regular BUTTS league match of the season to go level on points with Loughborough at the top, with only the Indoor Champs remaining to decide the fate of the title. BUTTS Indoor Champs in Nottingham on Sat 27th Feb will effectively be a straight shoot off for the title.

Nottingham followed up silver at BUTC with a very healthy 2270 against a 2228 from Warwick whose chances of overhauling either of the top two are now only mathematical. George Harding was Nottingham's top scorer again with an impressive 586 with his three team-mates all hovering around the 560 mark. Warwick do seem to be hitting some form with a 2235 in their last outing. Chris Wells' 579 was their top score. Oxford shot 2183 to finish third with Derby way back on 1624. In a closely contested novice match, it was the Dark Blues of Oxford who emerged on top with a team of four total of 1939, sixteen ahead of Warwick, who were themselves seventeen ahead of Nottingham.

The BUTTS Indoor championships awards league points from 7 for 1st, 6 for 2nd etc. Nottingham have a slighly higher match aggregate than Loughborough and will have home advantage. Nottingham will also be keen to eradicate memories of a year ago, when Warwick snatched the title away from them in this fixture. Nottingham have never won the senior BUTTS title - Loughborough's one and only senior BUTTS triumph came back in 1997. The BUTTS Novice league is completely wide open with Birmingham, Nottingham and Cambridge all level on points at the top - Nottingham are defending this title.

In SUS, Napier squeezed past their city rivals Heriot-Watt, with a team total of exactly 2000 to give themselves a winning cushion of precisely seven, with hosts Dundee were third. Dan Wielding (Napier) top scored in the match with 553 as Napier just about kept alive their chances of finishing second in the senior SUS table. Napier also won the novice match with Heriot-Watt a fairly close second.

SUS differs from BUTTS in that the Indoor Championship (in Aberdeen on Sat 6th Mar) is a freestanding competition and does not contribute to the League totals. The last SUS league fixture is Aberdeen v Napier v Strathclyde on Sat 27th Feb and will decide who finishes best of the rest in Scotland. In the senior table, match hosts Aberdeen are in the box seat. A good second place finish would be enough for them as, compared to their guests, Aberdeen have an extra point and an advantage of 135 (v Napier) or 178 (v Strathclyde) in terms of aggregate. In the SUS novice league whoever wins between Aberdeen and Napier will definitely finish second - Napier won the SUS novice league and Aberdeen the SUS novice championships in 2008.

In other SUS news Joe Mathieson (Heriot-Watt) and Fraser Keir (N Edinburgh) won the SUS H2H event, beating Tegan Mortimer (St Andrews) and Emily Winder (N Dundee) in the final. Tristan Asker (Strathclyde) and Brian Foley (N Napier) were third, whilst Matt Beattie (Abertay) won the morning Portsmouth with 544.

See the current BUTTS league and SUS league standings.