UK Student Archery Association

BC - Imps beat UEA for SEAL [03/Apr/20]

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

Back in what seems like another era, but was in fact about 4 weeks ago, Imperial won SEAL match 5 to win the league title. East Anglia were second in the match and Essex were third, both finishing in that position in the overall table - for both this is a highest ever placing.

Three legs in to the SEAL campaign, Imperial appeared to be running away with the title. Only the consistency of East Anglia finishing second each time had kept them remotely in sight. Then in match 4, the round extracted from BUCS qualifiers, UEA did record a win, beating the Imps 2175-2170. This cut the gap at the top to 2 league points. However the aggregate gap remained high at 199, meaning even a third placed finish from Imperial would probably be enough.

In the novice table, Southampton led Imperial by a single point. However Southampton's novices had a slightly inferior points aggregate, so this became a winner takes all shoot off.

In the final match East Anglia posted a total of 2158, and this was enough to go 45 points clear of the rest of the field. Imperial, however, just had that extra gear and pulled away to win match 5 with 2227 and thus win the title. Samuel Walby (Imperial) was top gent in the match on 577, with Charis Charalambous (East Anglia) and Yin Chan (Imperial) scoring matching 565s. Lauren Bann (Essex) was the top scorer in the match on 584, driving Essex to third on 2113 a little way ahead of Southampton who were fourth on 2086. London and Portsmouth fought it out for fifth, with London coming out just ahead 2065 to 2060. Jonas Skackauskas (Brunel) scored 560 as his side were best of the rest.

Imperial won their 3rd successive senior SEAL title, by the relatively comfortable margin of 3 league points - the previous two have both come down to points aggregate. It is Imperial's 7th senior SEAL title ever and achieved with an average over 50 points per match higher than their closest rivals. There were some less familiar names on the 2019/20 SEAL podium. Since they joined in 2014/15, East Anglia have only finished in the bottom half of the SEAL table once but never higher than fourth. This year they finished a strong second courtesy of a win and 4 seconds. UEA's men's team were 5th at BUCS Indoors - their previous best at a national event was 14th.

Essex too recorded their best ever finish in SEAL, in third on 63 points. Lauren Bann won the club's first individual BUCS medal for almost 30 years and has been an intergral part of the club's success. Getting ahead of the pack and consistency have been Essex's strengths - 4 of their five totals have been within the range of under one arrow value, between 2105 and 2114. Southampton were fourth overall on 58, well clear of Surrey 48 who stumbled in the last leg and narrowly avoided being caught by London.

Newcomers Royal Holloway finished 14th out of 15 in their debut season. They did avoid picking up a wooden spoon in any of the individual matches.

In SEAL's novice finale, Southampton v Imperial would decide the title and in a nailbiter, there were only 7 points in it. Southampton's novices just had the edge however with 1497 and held on to top spot overall as the Imps recorded 1490 and finished second overall. In match 5 itself it was actually Portsmouth who took top spot with 1526 - the top 3 teams were well clear. Portsmouth secured third spot in the table as a result. Yair Garfunkel (Portsmouth) was top novice in the match with 526.

SEAL Outdoors has not been scheduled and at this stage it looks unlikely to happen.