UK Student Archery Association

TOUCANs flock to Indoor Champs [12/Mar/25]

The TOUCAN Indoor Championships were held in Loughborough on Sat 8th Mar. Results from this event conclude the TOUCAN league season. Warwick won the overall TOUCAN league title. Nottingham won the Indoor Champs itself. Loughborough's novices win the event and novice TOUCAN title. With the BUCS National Finals looming this coming weekend, the TOUCAN Indoor Champs sees all 14 TOUCAN clubs competing against each other.

A reminder that the BUTC deadline for clubs wanting a possible B team space is today, Wed 12th Mar. The final BUTC deadline for A teams is Wed 19th Mar.

Nottingham posted 2286 in the morning session and were then able to sit back and watch their rivals unable to top it. Nottingham's team was Louisa Piper, top scorer in the match on 587, with Mohammed Ismael Ahmed 571, Tristan Mok 567, Hannah Evans 561. Oxford came closest with 2261, with 577 and 575 from Ecaterina Pogorenii and Yanyijie Zhou, plus Emma Howes' 561. Nottingham and Oxford were 3rd and 4th in the overall TOUCAN table. They had been level on 15 points at the start of play. Warwick and Birmingham started on 22 and 20 points. Remarkably the West Midlands rivals both landed on a score of 2220. Birmingham nudging ahead on golds. Megan Costall (Birmingham) scored 575, with Rohit Ravichandran and Sam Nicholls (both Warwick) on 570 and 560 respectively.

Loughborough saved their best score of the TOUCAN season for last, on 2209. Leicester were the last of leading group on 2165. Loughborough made up the 1 point gap to Leicester in the TOUCAN table and 44 point margin was more than the 20 they would have needed to take fifth place overall ahead of an unlucky Leicester. Top scorers here were Conor Nolan (Loughborough) 572 and Alice Haskell (Leicester) 566. Coventry were 7th on 2089, with Callum Piggot (Coventry) the top scoring gent in the match on 585. Northampton were the top div 2 team in the results, 8th overall on 1962. Already leading the div 2 standings, they ensured that they would top the div 2 standings and also have the 8th highest best-3-match-average and thus earn themselves promotion to div 1 in 2025/26, replacing Nottingham Trent.

In the TOUCAN novice standings, Loughborough have been untouchable this year. On home soil, they made no mistake with 2094, with Nottingham in second on 2017. Top novices were Imogen Bartin (Warwick) 542 and Daniel Leonard (Loughborough) 541. Warwick were third in the match. Joshua Cook (Loughborough) scored 532, whilst there were high 520s from Matthew Rush (Warwick), Jess Wrona (Nottingham) and Chun Fai Jeffrey Yao (Oxford). In the div 2 fixture, Cambridge pipped De Montfort by 1823-1817.

Loughborough completed a clean sweep of 4 novice match wins, ending on 32 out of a possible 32 points. This is Loughborough's fourth TOUCAN novice league win and first since 2017. Warwick were second on 25, with Birmingham third on 23. In the novice div 2 standings, De Montfort were clear winners ovearll on 23 league points, despite being denied a clean sweep by Cambridge, who were second overall on 20 points.

See the final TOUCAN league standings on the TOUCAN 2024/25 page.

Warwick end the TOUCAN league season on 27 league points, with Birmingham on 26, Nottingham on 23 and Oxford on 22. 4th place in the final match might not have been quite the final flourish that Warwick were looking for, but they got over the line, despite a couple of leading archers being absent, shooting for Warwickshire. The win is Warwick's 10th senior TOUCAN title in its 29 competitive seasons so far. Second place for Birmingham is their best post-Covid finish. Nottingham were third despite winning 2 out of 4 matches and scoring the 2 highest match totals of the season. A costly 7th place in match 2 proved their undoing. Oxford were off the podium despite a match average over 2200, ending a run of three Dark Blue title wins in a row.

Further down the table, Leicester (6th) and Coventry (7th) were both making their div 1 debut. Both were comfortable in div 1 and recorded all time best finishes, with Leicester only just denied 5th place on match aggregate. Northampton (div 2 1st) also recorded their best ever league finish.

The TOUCAN Indoor Champs take place the weekend before the BUCS Indoor National Finals, in Warwick, for which the target lists have been published. The Midlands clubs will hoping to repeat their national level success of recent years. In the 3 post Covid BUCS Indoor Championships (2022-2024 inclusive), TOUCAN clubs have won 13 out of the 18 possible sets of gents and ladies recurve team medals.