UK Student Archery Association

SWWU's first Indoor Champs [20/Dec/19]

Results and updated tables from SWWU Indoor Champs (which also doubled as SWWU match 3) have been published on the SWWU 2019/20 page of this site.

Running an Indoor Championship event was a first for SWWU and there were roughly 100 archers in attendance in Exeter on 7th December. The ranking round (a Bray I) was used to generate the team results and these were incorporated in to the league standings. Following the ranking round there were individual H2Hs. This format closely resembles the BUCS Indoor National Finals Event, so what better moment to remind everyone that entries for BUCS Indoor Regional Qualifying events close on Tuesday 21st January 2020.

In the competition itself, Plymouth maintained their perfect start to the season, but they were made to work hard by hosts Exeter. Plymouth's winning total was 1034, exactly 20 ahead of Exeter's 1014. There was then a bit of a gap to the remaining 4 sides who were all quite close together - only 46 separated 3rd from 6th. Swansea's 967 led the chasing pack. The top individuals in the match followed a similar pattern with Alex Rowe (Plymouth) on 275 and William Ingamells (Exeter) on 271.

Plymouth also edged out Exeter at the top of the novice match, with Swansea not far behind - the same top 3 as the seniors. Harriet Wood (Exeter) was top individual. Swansea pipped Cardiff in the compound team event. Swansea now have two compound team 1sts and a DNS. Exeter lead the compound table.

In the individual H2H portion of the day, 4th seed Joe Tripp (Plymouth) beat 7th seed Matt Butler (Swansea) in the gents final. 2nd seed Johanna Meyer (Bath) beat top seed Joanne Humphreys (Cardiff) in the ladies final. Humphreys had outqualified her opponent by a point but Meyer is something of a H2H expert, having previously won the BUCS Outdoor H2H ladies recurve title three times. Alex Rowe and Kerry Marks (both Plymouth) won recurve bronzes. Lonja Selter and Eloise Hepburn (also both Plymouth) won barebow golds. Full report and results, including all the category medal winners are available on the SWWU website.

Returning to the overall league standings, in both senior and novice recurve divisions Plymouth lead the way with a maximum of 30 points and Exeter are in second place on 26. In the senior table Bristol are third on 21 and Swansea are fourth on 20. The Swans are also third in the novice table with 25. Non-attendance of some fixtures has all but ruled out Bath and Aberystwyth in terms of overall contention, but their performances suggest that both could still influence the top end of individual matches.

As things stand, Plymouth are top at Christmas and will be hoping that scoreboard pressure can help them to land a maiden SWWU title.

SWWU will resume using scores harvested from the BUCS Regional Qualifying events, one of which will be in Bristol.