UK Student Archery Association

Swans glide to SWWU title [12/May/16]

Quick reminder that BUCS Outdoors deadline is Monday 23rd May, a week and a half away.

The final two matches of the SWWU calendar took place on 23rd and 30th April and two wins for Swansea's seniors saw them extend their lead at the top of the table and take the title, see the final SWWU standings for 2015/16. Swansea join Edinburgh, London, Birmingham and Liverpool as the 5 regional champions this year. Exeter join Edinburgh, Southampton, Birmingham and Bradford as novice champions.

Match 4 was a 1440 and Metrics and was hosted by Bath. Swansea won quite convincingly with a team total of exactly 3200, nearly 500 ahead of closeest rivals Exeter. Bristol finished ahead of Bath to claim third place. This is Bristol's first podium finish at a senior SWWU match. This result increased Swansea's lead from 4 to 5 points with only their home leg to go - effectively guaranteeing them the SWWU title. Top scorer in the match was Anastasia Paramore (Swansea), seven short of 1,000.

Match 4 proved a more topsy turvy affair for the novice table as league leaders Exeter could only manage 5th. A win for principal challengers Swansea would have seen them wipe out the 4 point deficit, but Swansea's novices thmeselves were only 4th. The match was won jointly by Bath and Bristol who scored the same total and received 9.5 league points each.

On the same day as this match, SSS Outdoors took place in Edinburgh. The hosts dominated proceedings with Johanna Meyer, Sukrit Hotrabhvanon and Vladimir Hurban (all Edinburgh) in the mid to high 1100s. Edinburgh scored 4509 and won by a margin of over 1,500 points. Aberdeen were second and St Andrews were third, with overall attendance levels low.

SWWU Match 5 was a St George/Albion/Windsor and saw Swansea officially claim the SWWU title with a good win on home soil. Exeter were second and Cardiff third, mirroring the final league table. Bath were fourth and leapfrogged Plymouth in the final standings as they did not shoot in match 5. Exeter won novice match 5 to take the novice title, recovering from their wobble in match 4. Swansea and Cardiff were second and third in match 5 and overall. Mark Smith (Swansea) was top scorer in the senior match with 661.

These fixtures saw two lady longbow All Uni records broken. Emily Williams (South Wales) broke her own mark on the Albion - with 363, an increase of 35 points on this fixture from two years ago. Linda Repetto (Edinburgh) put 80 points on the previous Metric II record with 384. [Updates to this paragraph 13th May]

Swansea's senior SWWU championship is the Welsh side's second senior title in 15 years of SWWU competition. Swansea's previous title came in 2010 when they won all 4 matches in a league with only 3 complete teams. Bath (8 times) and Exeter (5 times) have been the other winners. This season, seven complete sides have contested SWWU matches, with all five matches featuring at least five full teams.

SWWU had probably its best year in terms of attendance levels and also had Plymouth and Cardiff host a fixture for the first time. In this geographically spread league, these two clubs also hosted SWWU's first ever split venue fixture. David Jenner takes over from Mark Ferguson as league organiser in 2016/17.

SSS had no league organiser right up until virtually the start of the season, with Alex Blake coming in at the last minute. The standard in SSS matches showed improvements after Christmas after Edinburgh began fielding stronger teams to make sure of the league title. West of Scotland were the first new club added to SSS in 10 years and there is the propspect of a new club at Glasgow joining in 2016/17.