UK Student Archery Association

Qualifying for BUCS [04/Mar/22]

Qualifying for BUCS Indoor championships 2022 was split between Manchester (19th Feb), Napier and Bristol (both 26th Feb). A total of 624 scores were returned and the scores were also used for NEUAL, SEAL and SWWU matches. BUCS have published the full combined results and the minimum scores to qualify for the finals event in Warwick (19th Mar) break down as follows (gents/ladies): for recurve 507/487, barebow 411/364, compound 563/563 (same for both) and for longbow 277/324. Full details of the National Finals are on the BUCS website and combined results are on the ianseo pages. For the links, see the BUCS Indoor section of this site.

James Woodgate (Warwick) was top gent qualifier on 587, with Louisa Piper (Nottingham) top lady on 585. Just behind the leader was Yang Pei (Oxford) on 586 and Ugo So (Birmingham) on 585. Tom Braxton (Leeds) scored 583, with Ben Evans (Loughborough) and Lauren Rawlings (Chester) both scoring exactly 580. A further nine gents and one lady were in the 570s. In the other bowstyles, Matt Waters and Simran Panesar (both Nottingham) were top gent and lady barebow on 531 and 511 - Panesar's winning margin was nearly 40 points. Jake Walsh (Edinburgh) was top gent compound on 593, missing out on the BUCS record by 1, with Grace Chappell (Arts Bournemouth) top lady compound qualifier on 584. Henry Cossey (King's College) and Helen Woodcock (Manchester Met) were top longbows on 431 and 354.

Elsewhere, Hollie Murdock (Ulster) became the first competitor - that UKSAA can find - from a Northern Irish club to compete at a BUCS archery event, scoring 536 at the Napier qualifier, to comfortably make the Finals cut.

SEAL, SWWU and NEUAL all used these scores as a match round.

Fifty points covered SEAL's top 4 in this match and there were some changes to the top of the table as a result. Surrey finished top and the only club to break 2100 with 2105 - this appears to be Surrey's first leg win since SEAL shifted to the all vs all format in 2012. Southampton grabbed second spot with 2091. League leaders UEA were third on 2062, a crucial 5 ahead of Imperial. UEA and Surrey now have 56 points each and face a winner-takes-all match 5 this weekend. Imperial are back on 54 and could still win, but would need quite a specific set of results including neither UEA nor Surrey placing in the top two. The novice SEAL situation has suddenly become very straightforward as Surrey vaulted six points clear. Shauna Punjabi (Royal Holloway) scored 569. Top novice was Thomas Rands (East Anglia) on 504.

Only 1 point separated first from second in the SWWU fixture. Bristol, shooting at home, notched 2131 to win the match but it was fantastically close as the team that came second were only 1 adrift on 2130. Who were the challengers? None other that West of England who made an astonishing full SWWU debut in second place and only a couple of line cutters from snatching an outright win. Bath were third in the match, just over 50 behind on 2077, closely followed by Cardiff's 2062 and Plymouth on 2054. Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter went in to this match level on league points at the top of SWWU and they are still the top three. Now however Bristol have 44 points, Cardiff 41 and Exeter 39. Neither Bristol nor Cardiff have won SWWU before. Plymouth won the novice fixture, with Swansea second. UWE's excellent debut continued with third place here. Swansea maintain a big lead in the novice table. Aaron Cardwell (UWE) was top individual in the match on 566, with David Ambrose (Plymouth) top novice on 506.

The NEUAL fixture extracted will be reviewed separately as part of a NEUAL catch up editorial. This weekend's fixtures includes SEAL match 5 (see above), NEUAL Indoor Champs, being held postally and BUTTS div 2 match 3 in Northampton. Saturday 5th is also the last day you can submit scores for E-League Round 4, February.