UK Student Archery Association

Lilleshall Head to Heads [12/Jul/18]

The H2H Tournament on the Sunday following BUCS Indoors brought the curtain down on the domestic season. This is the 6th edition of the tournament, which first ran in 2013. For the first time this year, longbow was split into separate gents and ladies fields.

There were 85 gent recurves and 43 ladies, with 35 barebows, 31 compounds, 7 longbows which made a total of 201. Alex Newnes (Aberystwyth) bagged his second All Unis record of the weekend (for the second year in a row), qualifying top longbow on 401, 19 clear of his old record and 240 clear of the field. Both recurve records (which dated from 2013 and 2014) were broken. Tom Hall (Warwick) scored 651 whilst Eleanor Piper (Birmingham) scored 621. Stuart Taylor (Keele) matched the gents compoud record of 681 and in the KO rounds would score a 147 to break that mark.

In gents recurve, top seed Tom Hall (Warwick) made it a doubly golden weekend, beating 2nd seed Chris O'Connell (Surrey). O'Connell took the first set, but in response Hall lost only 6 more points over the next 3 sets to win 6-2 and rack up a third title. Tom Hall beat Arthur Coveney (Loughborough) in the quarter final before coming through an all-Hall semi final against Conor Hall (Birmingham), winning the last two sets of both matches to win 7-3. In the other half of the draw, Luke Frearson (Nottingham, qual 23rd) beat 10th seed Chris Cooper (Loughborough) and team mate Phil Middleton on his way to the last 8, before eventually exiting to O'Connell, despite halving the third and fourth sets. Chris O'Connell beat Sherman Ip (Warwick) 7-3 in their semi, Ip having beaten Nick Wilson (Southampton, qual 11th) by the same score - Wilson himself had won through his previous two rounds 6-4 last set wins. Ip beat Conor Hall for bronze 6-4.

In the ladies recurve event, Johanna Meyer (Edinburgh) seeded 3rd defended her title against the Saturday's winner Eleanor Piper (Birmingham). Meyer controlled the final, averaging over 9 per arrow to win the match in straight sets and win the event for the third time in four years. Piper may well have been feeling the effects of an epic semi-final against club mate Rebekah Tipping (qual 5th). Tipping beat Hannah Burnage (Warwick, qual 4th) led 2-0 and 4-2, but Piper forced a shoot off as the fifth set ended level, before claiming a spot in the final 8-7 in a shoot off. Johanna Meyer beat Collette Webster (Aberystwyth) in her quarter final, before knocking out Emma Davis (Warwick) who had qualified second. Davis had previusly eliminated club mate Sarah Allaway. In her quarter final, Piper beat Elizabeth Kellingley (Brighton).

Andrew Brookes (Staffordshire) won the gents compound title by a single point, 141-140 against Stuart Taylor (Keele). Earlier, in his QF, Taylor had shot 147 to break the All Unis record by a single point. Having lost to Taylor in the semi-final Rhys Harper (Lancaster) beat Sam Rees (Birmingham) in the bronze medal match. Sarah Moon (Nottingham Trent) won ladies compound with a comfortable 142-131 win against Lizzie Foster (Durham) in the final. Anca Tutuianu (Bradford) beat Lydia Sinnett-Smith (Nottingham) by a single point in the bronze match.

William Croydon (Loughborough) dominated gents barebow event, qualifying first and not dropping a set until the final. Will Armstrong (Bristol) who qualified second had dropped only one. In the final itself, the pair made it 2-2 and then 4-4 before William Croydon took the title in the last. Essi Peukuri (Nottingham Trent, qual 2nd) beat Malin Schulz (Surrey, qual 1st) in an evenly contested women's barebow final. Two halved sets bookended a win each to leave this as an all or nothing finish and Schulz faded to allow Peukuri to make her club the only multiple winners on the day.

In this event, the smaller bow styles have combined, so it was a departure to see 4 gents and 3 ladies longbow line up separately. Alex Newnes (Aberystywth) and Helend Woodcock (Central Lancs) matched their Saturday victories with Sunday ones.

Alex Newnes (Aberystwyth) became the fourth person and first longbow to win multiple H2H titles. Tom Hall (Warwick) and Johanna Meyer (Edinburgh) each won their third title - a new record. Both seem to love the format. Meyer has lost only twice - once in 2014 (as a novice) to Charlie Birch and in a 2016 semi-final against eventual winner Rebekah Tipping (Birmingham). Her win loss record is 20-2, and is 19-1 if you consider her senior record only. Tom Hall's win loss record is 26-2, his two defeats v Richard Haydock (Nottingham) in 2014 QF and Andrew Howe (Southampton) in 2015 SF.

See results in BUCS Outdoors section.

Archery is now present at the Summer Universiade (or World Student Games) as a compulsory sport for the first time - well in 2019 in Naples anyway. That means 2018 is an off year, so the Lilleshall H2Hs closed off the student season.