UK Student Archery Association

SWWU titles wrapped up [03/Aug/18]

Results from SWWU match 5, were extracted from the BUCS Outdoors scores shot at Lilleshall on the Saturday. Exeter (seniors) and Swansea (novices) won the match. Both teams already leading their tables and won their respective championships as a result.

With three of the five archers to break 1000 shooting for Exeter, the defending champions enjoyed a comfortable win in match 5 with 4127. Swansea were second in the match back on 3262, with Bristol a fraction over 2800 in third place. This was a further 200 clear of Aberystwyth, for whom Collette Webster top scored in the match with 1131. Ben Trudgill (Exeter) scored 1101. Tom Ledgerwood, Adam Banks (both Exeter) and Alex Rowe (Plymouth) also broke four figures.

Exeter 7th win in 10 SWWU legs means that they have successfully defended the senior SWWU title. Exeter have now won this title 6 times. Plymouth may have dropped from second to third in the overall table as a result of match 5 but this was still their best ever finish in SWWU. Plymouth have finished 4th in SWWU 4 times, but in each case it was 4th out of 5. In fact Plymouth have never previously finished in SWWU's top half, less still won a fixture as they did in match 2.

Swansea only grabbed second spot in the senior table right on the tape, but their novices won the SWWU novice title for the third time with a win in match 5.

SWWU still struggles from a lack of indoor matches, but no discussion of SWWU in 2017/18 would be complete without mentioning one particular indoor event, that is BUTC 2018 in Birmingham. No SWWU team won a KO BUTC match in 2013 or 2014 and no SWWU team entered BUTC at all in 2015 or 2016. From those lows, in 2017 Swansea came back for the first time in 8 years and surprised even themselves with a run to the semis. In 2018, five different SWWU sides lined up - the previous high was three - and Bristol, Cardiff and Plymouth all made their debuts on the discs. Only Plymouth (who lost to Cardiff) and Bristol fell in Round 1. Cardiff's run to the QF's included a sensational tie-break defeat of third seeds Birmingham B and was the best debut by any club since 2010. Exeter - back for the first time in 6 years - joined them in the last 8 when they knocked out Swansea. Exeter then came with a disc of eventual finalists Loughborough.

SWWU SWWU SWWU indeed. [A few minor changes to the BUTC para. - Ed.]