UK Student Archery Association

BC - Warwick sweep BUTTS [31/Mar/20]

Editor's note - BC stands for Before Covid-19.

Back in what seems like another era, but was in fact about 3 weeks ago, Warwick won the BUTTS Indoor Championships and with it the BUTTS league title. On the same day Imperial won SEAL match 5 to win that league - that will be reviewed fully in the next editorial. Both sides top their tables for a third year in succession.

BUTTS Indoors itself includes all 13 teams from the main BUTTS divsion and division 2.

Champions-elect Warwick already had a 4 league point lead going in to the match. Their total of 2292 rounded off this BUTTS league campaign with another win, albeit their first score sub-2300 this year. Loughborough signposted their strong BUCS showing with 2272 to take second spot only 20 behind, with hosts Birmingham third, a mere 16 further back on 2256. Behind the leaders, Nottingham just about held on to 4th spot ahead of Oxford 2213 to 2199. Cambridge and De Montfort were sixth and seventh in the low 2100s, with Leicester next, the best of the div 2 teams.

William Pike (Warwick) was the engine room of his side's success shooting a 591 the weekend before he would go on to dominate at BUCS Indoors. Second highest score was Christopher Avins (Birmingham) on 578, whilst Ben Evans and Arthur Coveney (both Loughborough) scored 575 and 572. No less than 6 archers were crammed in between 565 and 568, specifically the remainder of Warwick's team James Gardner, Emma Davis and Sam Armstrong plus Chris Cooper (Loughborough), Philippa Taylor (Birmingham) and Yang Pei (Oxford). Junting Ge (Warwick) and Lizzie Elmer (Nottingham) also broke 560.

In the novice event, as in the previous BUTTS league match, Nottingham and Birmingham occupied the top two slots. This time Cambridge were not too far behind in third. At these Champs, Nottingham took top spot with 2092 and included the top two individuals in Charlotte Chard on 549 and Dominic Kelsey on 543. Simran Panesar was also on that team and she scored 503, breaking the All Unis novice barebow ladies Portsmouth record (which had stood for 7 years) by 3 points.

Those results meant that Birmingham finished on 34 points and won the novice title for the 9th time, mirroring Warwick's seniors. Nottingham's win here pushed them clear in to second place on 30. Cambridge's novices caught up with Warwick both landing on 26 points. The Light Blues took third, overturning a points aggregate deficit of nearly 200 to do so.

In the Division 2 fixture, also extracted from the results, Leicester came out on top. They scored 2041 to win by a touch over 100 from Coventry also beat two of the main division sides.

Full results are now also available for division 2 matches 2 and 3. These were won by Northampton with 2086 and Coventry with 2054 respectively. Leicester were runners up in both these matches and they finished top of this table on 14 points, with Coventry runners up on 11. Leicester also pipped Coventry in the novice standings.

Northampton's 2086 in match 2 (which they hosted) was a full 240 points (i.e. 1 point per person per arrow) higher than Northampton's other three scores. In fact it was the highest score by a div 2 team all season.

In the final main division senior table, Warwick stretched their lead and they end the season on a maximum possible 36/36 points. In fact you have to go back to May 2018 to find the last time Warwick were denied top spot at a BUTTS fixture, a run of 10 consecutive wins. Warwick also won their 9th senior BUTTS league title, surpassing the record they jointly held with Cambridge. Birmingham were comfortably second in the league overall after another strong season. Loughborough's best league finish of the year meant they made sure of third place ahead of Nottingham and Oxford who duked it out for 4th on the day and overall.

The end of season BUTTS league table usually has some high scoring tales to tell. In winning the last 3 BUTTS titles, Warwick have shot 14 Portsmouths and broken 2300, once a semi-mythical score, ten times. Once again Birmingham have come closest to toppling them and both they and Loughborough have produced scores that would almost certainly win any of the other leagues. Nottingham never shot less than 2200 all year and still missed out on the final podium. Oxford averaged in the 2180s and were rewarded with a squarely mid-table finish.

De Montfort finished 7th in their debut season in the main BUTTS division, having moved from division 2. Their best individual result was a 6th and although they were not quite as strong as the season before, they produced creditable performances in a very tough league.

For obvious reasons it is now very unlikely that BUTTS Outdoors will take place, so the Indoor Champs will probably conclude Midlands action until next season. Confirmation also came today that NEUAL Outdoors, scheduled for Lancaster on Sun 10th May, has been cancelled.

All the BUTTS results and final standings can be found on the BUTTS 2019/20 page.