UK Student Archery Association

BUCS Indoor 2025 Finals Review [20/Mar/25]

Warwick (men's) and Oxford (women's) won the respective 2025 BUCS Indoor recurve team titles. Warwick's men scored 1664 to win by a clear 44 points, whilst Oxford's women scored 1624 - more than any other men's team bar Warwick - wo win by 30. This combination of winners is the exact repeat of the BUCS Indoor result from 10 years ago in 2015, the first year that separate men's and women's team results were in operation. Southampton narrowly pipped Nottingham to second place in the gents standings 1620 plays 1617. This result is Southampton's best at a BUCS event since they completed the Indoors/Outdoors double back in 1992 - 33 years ago. Nottingham won gents team bronze and ladies team silver - by far the best combo on the day. Their women's trio scored 1594, 30 behind Oxford, but 120+ clear of the field. York's women's team were best of the rest, taking bronze on 1472. This is York's best result at a BUCS event since 2004.

Matching their result from 12 months ago, Imperial were 4th gents team on 1603. Dundee's 1586 edged Sheffield into sixth on 1582. Strathclyde took seventh on 1557, narrowly beating 1554 from Manchester. Both Dundee (1983) and Manchester (1982) recorded their best finish at a BUCS event for over 40 years. It's Strathclyde's best ever at a BUCS Indoors, although they were 3rd at BUCS Outdoors, back in 1999. There were 18 complete gents teams.

Just outside the ladies podium were Leeds, who took fourth spot with 1447, with defending champions Edinburgh in fifth on 1433 and Ulster in sixth on 1407. Ulster set their best ever team finish at a BUCS event. Warwick and Southampton, who were first and second on the gents side, were seventh and eighth on the women's side, taking the last available BUCS points here. There were 17 complete ladies teams but once again the lower reaches of the ladies team rankings reflect the fact that fewer women than men are allocated spaces. Top barebows move in to the spaces vacated by 3rd best recurves and the team scores drop accordingly.

There were 3 compound teams of 2 this year, with Nottingham taking top spot with 1150.

Since 2017, BUCS Indoors has used regional qualifying events to whittle down the field. In 2020, the number of regional qualifying events rose from 2 to 3. The National Finals consist of a WA18m ranking round, with a further cut for those qualifying for H2Hs. Men's and women's recurve team titles were determined from the 18m round scores. Once again, places at the finals were allocated proportionally by bowstyle, but also proportionally by gender, which gave a roughly 55/45 male/female split and meaning that women's H2H field was smaller in some bowstyles.

This is the seventh season BUCS Finals have used the WA18m format. Gents barebow record was smashed by Daniel Kilgallon (UCLan), who scored 540 to put a full 18 points on the previous record.

Callum Piggott (Coventry) beat William Addison (Keele) 6-2 in the gents recurve final. Piggott, who was seeded 3rd took the first two sets with 30 and 28 and whilst Addison took the third set 29-28 to make it 4-2, Piggott thumped in another 30 to take the match. Both clubs pick up their first individual BUCS recurve medals for many years. Coventry's last one was in 2007, whilst Keele's was in 1995. Piggott had overcome 2nd seed Wills Chiu (Warwick), 6-4 in a tough semi, which had been 1-1, 3-3 and 4-4. The other semi-final was an all Keele affair, as Addison took on Will Oakes, who had qualified 4th. Opening with two ends of 30 put Addison 4-0 up and the match out of reach. Chiu beat Oakes 7-1 for bronze, with Oakes once again facing an opponent who began their match with two ends of 30. All four gents quarter-finals were 6-0 matches with the top 4 seeds winning, but all four matches were competitive, despite the set scorelines. Yin Chan (Imperial), Grant McLellan (Strathclyde), 2024 champion Kim Minseok (Southampton) and Jiaxuan Zhou (Warwick) were the four to go out. 23rd seed Zhou was the lowest seed to get this far. Chan came through a particularly epic round of 16 match against 8th seed Bei Nan (Edinburgh). Chan was 1-5 down, but shot a 30 and a 29 to force a shoot off, in which both archers shot 10s. In the same round eventual silver medallist Will Addison needed a shoot off to get past Jack McKay (q16th, Warwick).

Louisa Piper (Nottingham) overcame Charlotte Hempsall (Anglia Ruskin) in an epic women's recurve final. Hempsall won the first two ends with a 29 and a 28. The match hinged on the third end, where Piper's 29-28 win got her back in it. From there on, Piper hit nothing but tens to win to reclaim the title she won in 2023. Piper has now won 5 BUCS individual recurve titles, 2 indoor and 3 outdoor. Hempsall meanwhile went one better than she did in 2023. Piper had beaten Emily Nichols (Birmingham) 6-4 in a very tight semi. Piper opened with three 28s, as against Nichols' two 28s and a 29. In a foreshadowing of the final, Piper won the last two ends to make it through. Charlotte Hempsall found herself 3-1 down to surprise semi-finalist, 23rd seed Daisy Underwood (Nottingham). Underwood opened 30-28, but it fell away a little after that and Hempsall stayed strong for a 7-3 win. Underwood was 5-1 up against Nichols for bronze, and although she kept the pressure on, a strong fightback from Nichols saw her force a shoot off, which Nichols won 10-9. The four beaten female recurve quarter-finalists were Shihui Chen (Manchester), Marjan Abdelfattah (Ulster), Ecaterina Pogorenii (Oxford) and Avery Buller (York). Chen was 24th seed and the lowest seed to get this far, having already knocked out two of the top 10. Chen began well against Louisa Piper but faded. Marjan Abdelfattah went out 1-7 to Emily Nichols, with third seed Ecaterina Pogorenii going out by the same score to Charlotte Hempsall, despite averaging 27 over the 4 ends. The match of the round was Daisy Underwood (q 23rd) vs Avery Buller (q 18th). Buller went 4-0, before Underwood levelled. The fifth end was shared and only Underwood's slightly better 9 got her through. Buller had earlier knocked out second seed Yanyijie Zhou (Oxford) 6-0, shooting 29-29-30 to beat Zhou's 28-28-29.

Both men's and women's compound saw their top 8 qualify for the KO stages. Compound KO matches are 15 arrow matches rather than sets. Max Harding beat Sam Cartwight (both Nottingham) in the gents final 143-142. The match was won and lost in the third pass which was Cartwright go from 1 ahead to 3 behind after a 25. Cartwright's remaining 6 arrows were all 10s, but it was not quite enough and he won silver for the second year in a row. In the semi-final, 7th seed Harding shot 149 to match the All Unis record. He dropped his only point in the first end. In the ladies compound, Chloe A'Bear (Gloucestershire) went one better than last year, taking gold 147-135 against Deren Caglayan (Leeds). Caglayan was only one point behind after two ends, 56-57, but struggled thereafter, whilst A'Bear shot three maximums in a row. Yu Chak Ngai (Coventry) and Isabella Bruguier (Imperial) won bronzes.

Wenze Jiang (Manchester) successfully defended the gents barebow title he won 12 months ago, with a 6-2 win over 12th seed Fraser Street (Nottingham). Jiang, who qualified second and Street won a set each at the start of the match before the Jiang hit the accelerator in the second half of the match with 29 and 27. Street had been 1-5 down against top seed Daniel Kilgallon (Central Lancs) in their semi-final, but came back to win in a tie break. In fact Street beat 3 of the top 5 seeds - 2 by shoot off - on his way to silver. The other semi was also close as Wenze Jiang overcame Alex Kendrew (Birmingham) 6-4, Jiang taking the fifth set by a single point. Kendrew beat Kilgallon 7-1 for bronze, the damage mainly done in the first half of the match.

Kathryn Morton (Ulster) beat Marilyn Wong (Plymouth) in the ladies barebow final. Morton was seeded 14th and in fact only 2 of the top 8 seeds made the quater-finals, including the top seeded Wong. Both finalists were relatively untroubled by their semi-final opponents, Alex Minchin (UCLan) and Freya Rennie (West of Scotland). Minchin beat Rennie 7-1 in the bronze match. Kathryn Morton had already beaten 3rd seed Laura Mazzoni (Edinburgh), whilst 2nd seed Sharon Pisani (St Andrews) lost to Katie Pollington (Aston), who in turn lost to a strong finish from Freya Rennie.

Both longbow gents and ladies had enough competitors for a last 8 knock-out. Craig Mason beat Ben Moore (both Edinburgh) 6-4 in the gents final. Mason qualified 5th and Moore 3rd. Both gents had a slow start, but Moore took the first two sets before Mason levelled the match. Helen Woodcock (Manchester Met) succesfully defended her ladies longbow win from a year ago, with a hard fought 6-4 win over Rhiannon Wood (West of England). Woodcock went 4-0 up, before Wood levelled the match. Kieran Rugg (Nottingham) who was top gents qualifier and Alexandra Langdon-Reich (Sheffield) who was second ladies qualifier won bronze. The semi between Wood and Langdon-Reich had seen Wood come back from 2-4 to win 6-4.

As always, many thanks to all those who donate their time and energies to putting on a such great competition, including the teams at Warwick and the three Regional Qualifiers, Aberdeen, Manchester Met and Bristol. BUCS Indoors is very much an undertaking at scale and it could not happen without so many volunteers.