UK Student Archery Association

So'ton, Bath win southern titles [29/Jun/11]

Southampton and Bath have now been confirmed as the winners of SEAL and SWWU. The last 3 SEAL matches were extracted from BUCS Indoors scores and the last two SWWU legs were scores from Swansea on 7th May and from BUCS Outdoor scores. For Bath this is their sixth senior SWWU title in the ten years that the league has been running. Southampton meanwhile have broken the Imperial/Surrey duopoly in SEAL's eighth year. Imperial were SEAL runners up, ahead of Reading on points aggregate. Imperial and Bath won their respective novice league titles with maximum points. See the end of season SEAL and SWWU tables.

Bath won the third SWWU leg of the season, which was a FITA/Metric I/II held in Swansea on 7th May. Bath finished ahead of Swansea to move on to 15 league points. Exeter did not field any archers and remained stuck on 8 points, whilst Swansea overtook them on 10, leaving Bath needing only to attend the fourth and final leg to guarantee victory. The novice fixture included a 765 from Daniel Paterson (Bath) on the Metric I, an All Unis record. Bath beat Swansea despite only fielding two novices, Paterson and Alex Hickson who got 876 to top score. Rhodri Curnow (Swansea) top scored for the seniors on 864.

Bath won the final senior and novice leg (extracted from Lilleshall scores) to win both titles with a perfect four wins out of four. Bath's novice team of Hickson, Kieran Bodkin and Paterson picked up BUCS bronze medals as well. Swansea were second in both legs again, whilst Exeter were present but did not have complete teams in either senior or novice categories.

SWWU has been boosted by the return of Plymouth who shot in two of the legs this year. Meanwhile Gloucestershire were denied any funding from their Sports Union this year but hope to return stronger in 2011/12. If these two clubs can take part more fully next year, that will boost SWWU considerably for whoever takes over from Amyce Smith-Bannister (Bath). Under SWWU's rotation policy, this will be someone from Exeter.

The remaining three SEAL matches were all extracted from BUCS Indoors scores. One match was London v Brunel v Sussex, out of whom only London actually shot in Cardiff, walking away with maximum points be default. Similarly for Imperial v Surrey v Brunel, Surrey only had three seniors and no novices present, giving Imperial 3 and 3, Surrey 2 and 0. Brunel finished last in both tables with a row of zeroes after failing to enter a score all year long.

Only one fixture was actually competitive, but it was the league decider, with all three teams finishing bunched around the 2200 mark. Southampton and Imperial were in a straight shoot off for both senior and novice league titles, although in the end a full strength London team actually won the senior match with 2213. Southampton finished with 2204 to beat Imperial who scored 2189 and the senior title was Southampton's by those 15 points. The novice title went the other way, with Imperial pipping Southampton by a mere 11, 1502 to 1491.

Southampton have had a very successful year winning the senior SEAL title with a match average over 2200, picking up senior team BUCS points indoors and out, appearing in their first BUTC semi final and winning promotion into Senior Division 1 in the ELeague.

Brad Keogh (Southampton) is taking over from Ash Restell (ex Essex) as league organiser next year and there are discussion ongoing about SEAL's structure and composition for 2011/12. Details will be published as they become confirmed,