BUTC 2016 Review

Tournament Results [1,9Mb]

Warwick A (Tom Hall, James Jeffs, Jorge Lindley) won BUTC and the Werner Beiter trophy with a 14-12 win over Oxford A (Sherman Ip, Charlotte Birch, Simon Eberz) in the final. In the bronze medal match, Birmingham A (Francis Berti, Sam Rees, Chris Avins) beat Edinburgh (Guy Matzkin, Johanna Meyer, Janos Peters) 16-14.

There were 21 different universities taking part with De Montfort making their BUTC debut.

During the morning Bray I qualifying round, the leaderboard was constantly on the move, with no one team able to exert much in the way of continuous pressure. A leading group of 6 teams broke away and it was defending champions Warwick A who were in top spot when the music stopped, their tally of 813 just two points ahead of Edinburgh. The next four teams were all from BUTTS and all broke 800. Nottingham Trent scored 807, one ahead of Loughborough A who were one ahead of Birmingham A. Oxford A were 6th on 801 with the rest of the field over 20 points behind the Dark Blues. London A were seventh on 779, whilst Loughborough B were the top ranked B team, squeezing in to the top 8 on 771. Southampton A and Lancaster A rounded off the top 10 on 766 and 764, with Birmingham B just a point further behind. Liverpool A were next on 759, ten points ahead of Cambridge A. Surrey and Warwick B both scored 745 and 90 hits, with Surrey's 20 hits beating Warwick B's 18. Hosts Derby A took the last spot in the top hald of the draw on 736.

In the individual qualifying, Guy Matzkin (Edinburgh) and Tom Hall (Warwick A) both hit 285 with 17 golds. Charlotte Birch (Oxford A) was top lady in qualifying by 7 points with 271. Top novice was Antonio Rubino (Cambridge B) on 244.

The format of the knock-out matches was same as it has been since 2007, with the teams of three each shooting four ends of two arrows each at 60mm discs.

In the first half of the round of 32 there were no actual seeded upsets, but several very close calls. Most notably Loughborough A vs East Anglia A. Loughborough had out qualified last year's hosts by 171 points and 25 places and went 6-3 up at half way. From somewhere, East Anglia found inspiration and dragged the match back to 9-9. No team in the top 4 has ever gone out in the first round, but Loughborough did win the resultant shoot-off 2-1. East Anglia, hosts last year, were a judges call away from forcing a second shoot off. The fifth seeds Birmingham A also struggled past Oxford B 8-6. Even defending champions Warwick A (qual 1st) could only tie their first and second end against debutantes De Montfort, before eventually easing to a 10-4 win. Cambridge A (qual 13th) were made to work by Napier, with the match level after each of the first three passes before the Light Blues made it 10-8 in the 4th. Cambridge's B team went out 5-10 to Loughborough B. In an all SEAL encounter Southampton A beat Imperial A 9-6, whilst in an all NEUAL encounter Liverpool A won the last pass 2-0 to edge past Leeds 8-7.

Nottingham A (qual 19th) and Surrey (qual 14th) produced the highest match aggregate of the round of 32, with 22 discs shared equally. Slight underdogs Nottingham A had been 3 discs down, but with the momentum, they won the resultant shoot off 1-0. Meanwhile the tie of the round was unfolding on the neighbouring bosses. Birmingham B (qual 11th) had produced the second best Bray I of any B team, but against Reading A (qual 22nd) the match had finished 7-7. Hitting the last shoot off disc with seconds to spare got the Brummies another bite at the cherry, but when this also finished 1-1, a third shoot off was needed. This time Reading emerged victorious, 2-1, to provide the biggest seeding upset of the day. Both Lancaster A and B teams hit 8 discs, but got differing results. Lancaster A beat Liverpool B 8-6, but Lancaster B lost 8-9 to Warwick B after the BUTTS second string outfit scored 5 in the last end. Southampton B only secured a place in the event the night before and performed creditably in even getting a team up to Derby. However they lost the first end to local rivals London A 0-4 and could not recover, going out 5 discs to 9. Nottingham Trent had too much for Reading B, running out 9-2 winners. Oxford A and Edinburgh both scored lucky 13 to knock out Teesside and Imperial B in both cases with an end to spare.

In the top half of the round of 16 draw, Loughborough managed to get both sides through to the last 8 fairly comfortably. Having struggled in the first round, Loughborough A started to find some form with a perfect 6/6 in pass number 2 contributing to a score of 14. League rivals Cambridge A could only hit 7 in response. Loughborough B v Southampton A was 8th v 9th and should have been close, but with one of Southampton struggling with an injury the match drifted to a 9-3 finish. Hosts Derby won the BUTTS league team championships and made life awkward for the top seeds Warwick A before bowing out 12 discs to 10. Birmingham A vs Liverpool A was a noisy affair and the highest match aggregate of the round as both teams finished with a 4 and a 5. Fifth seeds Birmingham finally won 15-14 against the defending NEUAL champions. In fact NEUAL interest was snuffed out in this round as Lancaster A went down 9-10 to London A in a tight match. Fresh from their titanic shoot-off victory, Reading A went up against Oxford A, but were overwhelmed with an end to spare. The final score was 17-4 and included a Dark Blue 6/6. Edinburgh A hit 13 for the second consecutive match to edge Warwick B by two. The remaining match of the round was a city derby between Nottingham A and Nottingham Trent. The match was fought out in great spirit and although Nottingham were 6-4 up at half way, Trent fought back to claim a spot in the QFs for the first time 10 discs to 9.

The only QF to feature clubs from outside BUCS was Edinburgh v London A, where the Scottish side's consistency (4-4-4-3) did enough to secure a 15-12 win. London have made the last eight 4 times, but have yet to make the last four. Loughborough's A and B teams had the possibility of a semi-final meeting, but both fell a couple of discs short of making it happen. Loughborough B were far from outclassed as they went down 11-13 to Warwick A, conceding a disc in the first and third ends. Loughborough A went down by a disc in the second and fourth ends to go out to Birmingham A in another loudly contested match. Loughborough had made the semi finals 4 times in the previous 6 years, whilst Birmingham made the semis for the second time. In the other match, Oxford A held a 9-6 lead over Nottingham Trent at the half way point, but whilst the Dark Blues added another 9 in the second half, Trent ran out of steam and slipped out of the competition 18-8. Having qualified third and made the QFs for the first time does represent a good tournament for Trent.

The two semi-finals pitched together arguably the four pre-tournament favourites. Warwick were the defending champions. For Birmingham, this was a second trip to the semi-finals. In 2011 they had been rank outsiders, but the 2016 Brummies are a bona fide top level team. Edinburgh have won BUTC 5 times, most recently in 2010. Oxford's two titles came in 2013 (beating Edinburgh in that year's final) and 2014. Warwick A against Birmingham A started with a bang, 5-5 after the first end. The defending champions did win the second pass 4-2. Two discs up, Warwick A continued to press, scoring another 9 in the second half of the match to make Birmingham A's job virtually impossible and winning the match 18-13. The Edinburgh v Oxford A SF took until the second end to ignite, 2-2 in the first, then a 5-4 (making it 7-6) to Oxford. Oxford A saw out the match in a tense finish, final score 12-11, despite Edinburgh winning the last pass and threatening a shoot off. During this match Edinburgh pulled off one of the most remarkable shots ever fired at a BUTC. In the box, the limbs of two bows became tangled resulting one bow explosively de-stringing. Edinburgh's quick thinking team manager re-assmebled the bits of the bow quickly enough to allow Edinburgh to complete all 6 arrows.

The 2016 bronze medal match was arguably the match of the tournament. Problems with the timing system meant the first end was eventually shot in two halves, with Edinburgh overturning Birmingham A's early lead. The second proper end finished 3-3 to give Edinburgh a 7-6 advantage. From this point onwards Birmingham A turned on the style with consecutive ends of 5. Edinburgh hit 4 in the third pass to keep the match level, but could only find the discs with 3 arrows in the last pass, the match finishing 16-14. Birmingham medalled at BUTC for the second time, whilst this was Edinburgh's first semi-final appearance for three years.

The 2016 final was actually a repeat of the 2014 version as Oxford A took on Warwick A. Warwick were appearing in their 5th BUTC final, whilst Oxford were guaranteed to medal for the 4th year in a row. Warwick were top seeds and Oxford 6th, but only 12 Bray I points separated the teams. Warwick made an excellent start to the match with 5 hits, against which the Dark Blues could only manage 3, but worse was to follow for Oxford as their challenge failed to come to life. Warwick won the second pass 3-2, then third pass 4-2 and seemd to have one hand on the Werner Beiter trophy. Most teams would have dead and buried at 7-12 down with 6 to shoot and the atmosphere in the final was falling a little flat until the 4th pass began. In the first set of three arrows, Oxford took in just enough oxygen to survive, with 2 hits. Warwick just needed one disc for victory, but drew a blank. Oxford needed to clean their last 3 discs and to increasingly loud cheers they did exactly that. Warwick just needed one disc for victory but suddenly they seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Finally, and no doubt with some relief, Warwick did secure the hit they needed with their penultimate arrow. One of Warwick's other arrows was subsequently upgraded to a hit, making the final score 14-12.

BUTC could not go ahead with the support of its two key long terms sponsors, Clickers and Beiter who were once again critical to the success of the day, with Clickers supplying the bosses and targets and Beiter the hit/miss apparatus. Thanks are also due to the many people who worked hard in the months and days leading up to the tournament and on the day itself, particularly hosts Derby, Warwick (and their contribution to the field party) and the wider BUTTS family, also to the judging, IT and organising teams, commentators and absent friends.

So the BUTC train leaves Derby and the little yellow discs are packed away for another year. Could your club help to organise a competition like that? Expressions of interest in hosting BUTC 2017 are welcome at any time - just contact UKSAA.


Quarter Finals

  • Warwick A (1) beat Loughborough B (8)
  • Birmingham A (5) beat Loughborough A (4)
  • Oxford A (6) beat Nottingham Trent (3)
  • Edinburgh (2) beat London A (7)

Semi Finals

  • Warwick A beat Birmingham A
  • Oxford A beat Edinburgh

Third/Fourth place play-off

  • Birmingham A beat Edinburgh

Final

  • Warwick A beat Oxford A