UK Student Archery Association

London SEAL title hat-trick [14/Apr/17]

This is a catch up article reviewing SEAL matches 4 and 5. Match 4 was extracted from the BUCS Southern Qualifying tournament held in Crawley on 25th February. Match 5 was held across four regular SEAL venues over the weekend of the 11th and 12th of March.

SEAL Outdoors will have the same format as last year, a 720 with H2Hs, hosted by Surrey at Guildford AC on (a Bank Holiday) Monday, 29th May.

Match 4 saw Southampton claim a narrow win, necessary for keeping their title challenge alive. Southampton scored 2244 to just edge out London's tally of 2237. This was London's highest ever SEAL score. Portsmouth recorded their best finish of the season, third on 2152, well clear of Imperial, fourth on 2104. East Anglia were fifth. Southampton's novices picked up their second consecutive win, with Portsmouth in second and leaders Imperial third. Southampton's novices closed the gap on Imperial from 4 points to 2 with one match to go.

Sara Rubio (Southampton) tied the SEAL ladies record with 575, whilst Jonas Skackauskas (Brunel) was top gent on 577. Dominic Collis and Julie Saigusa (both London), Nick Wilson (Southampton) and Russel Foo Chuan Wen (Impeial) all scored in the low to mid 560s. Novices Lukas Bastow (Southampton), Rajdeep Mehon (Portsmouth) and Vera Jakisch (Imperial) were all the 520s.

Match 5 took place the week after BUTC. Already with a 4 league point lead, London knocked in a score of exactly 2200 to win the match and to win the league title for the third season on the spin. Southampton and Imperial were second and third in the match as they were in the final table, with 5th leg scores of 2173 and 2140 respectively. Essex were fifth in their best result of the SEAL season, beating local rivals East Anglia by a single point 2064 to 2063. East Anglia however remained fourth in the final table which is the Norwich side's best finish to date. Surrey ended the season 5th, ahead of Portsmouth. Anglia Ruskin ended their first SEAL season in 12th place.

The novice league was more hotly contested in the final stages. Southampton were 2 points behind Imperial, but had won the previous two legs. The south coast side did make it three in a row with 1547, but if Imperial could finish second, they would guarantee the title. The Imps did so, with 1496, well clear of Reading who were third in the match on 1418. Imperial's novice SEAL title was their first since 2011. London were fourth and fourth overall, whilst Brunel were fifth and clung on to third spot overall, their best finish for over 10 years. The 5 match aggregates of Imperial and Southampton's novices differed by only 7. For the four novice teams who finished between 3rd and 6th, the gap was a mere 12 points.

Top individual efforts in match 5 were from Jonas Skackauskas (Brunel) and Harry Williams (Reading) on 575 and 574, whilst there were low 560s for Bertina Chan and Dominic Collis (both London) and Matthew Hill (Portsmouth). Novices Sam Humphries (Portsmouth), Amie Mowlam-Tett (Essex) and Lukas Bastow (Southampton) were all in the 530s.

See the SEAL 16/17 page for the standings.

SEAL has now been crowning champions for 14 seasons. In the league's first seven seasons, Imperial (4) and Surrey (3) hoovered up all the senior league titles. In the second seven, London (now 4) and Southampton (3) have done the same, so London are now level with Imperial in the all-time list. Similarly Imperial now join Southampton on 5 novice league titles each.