UK Student Archery Association

Lilleshall Head to Heads [24/Jun/15]

For the third time, there were 70m/50m H2Hs on the Sunday following BUCS Outdoor Champs. In the field there were 95 gents recurves, 65 ladies, 37 in the combined barebow/longbow category and 21 compounds making a field of 218, another new high, following 159 (2013) and 201 (2014). In its third season, the flurry of record breaking has subsided a little, although there were two new records set. Kayleigh Baylis (Aberystwyth) broke the ladies longbow 70m record with a score of 208, beating the previous record of 126. Hope Greenwood (Edinburgh) shot 145 in a compound 50m KO match.

Top qualifier Ashe Morgan (Birmingham) beat 7th seed Andrew Howe (Southampton) in the final. Howe had knocked out 2nd seed Alexander Smith (Oxford) in his QF before also beating 3rd seed Tom Hall (Warwick) in the semi. Hall beat Vlado Hurban (Edinburgh) for bronze. Arthur Coveney (Loughborough), Jorge Lindley (Warwick) and Aidas Liaudanskas (Cambridge) were the other quarter-finalists. Liaudanskas who qualified 19th had eliminated 3rd seed Rob Gray (Nottingham Trent) in the previous round.

In the ladies recurve event there were several notable upsets. Johanna Meyer (Edinburgh) won, despite qualifying 17th beating Lydia Sinnet-Smith (Cambridge), the 7th seed - and a novice - in the final. In the semi-finals Meyer beat 4th seed Klara Fay (Oxford), whilst Sinnet-Smith beat 3rd seed Madeleine Meatyard (Warwick), Meatyard going on to take bronze. Top seed Maryia Karpiyevich (Cambridge) came unstuck against Meyer in the round of 16. The biggest upset in the ladies however was in the round of 32, where 2nd seed Charlie Birch (Oxford) came unstuck against Katie Wood (Birmingham). Birch had out-qualifed Wood by 144 (i.e. 2 points per arrow) in the ranking round. Rebekah Tipping (Aberdeen), Charlotte Smith (Bradford), Eleonore Cossade (Oxford) and another novice Abby Slark (Southampton) were the losing quarter-finalists.

Hope Greenwood beat Harrison Ooi (both Edinburgh) in the compound final, Greenwood's winning total in the final was 145 the highest of the day and enough for the record. Ooi needed a shoot off against Shaun Rhodes (Derby) in his semi final. Matthew Dale (Warwick) beat Rhodes to take bronze.

In the combined barebow and longbow field, Huw Vaughan-Jackson (Edinburgh) beat Jennifer Mankin (Sussex) in the final. Neither finalist had dropped a single set until that point. This was a repeat of the 2014 barebow final, except that last year Mankin and Vaughan-Jackson were Edinburgh team-mates. Vaughan-Jackson has now appeared in all three H2H barebow finals, winning twice. Miranda Timmerman (Bristol) beat Liam McDonnell (Southampton) in the bronze match.

BUCS can now look back on 15 years at Lilleshall, but there was a lot of discussion, particularly on UKSAA's Facebook page about the future structure of the event because teams were limited to 11 entries for the BUCS championships 1440 round on the Saturday. The simple fact is that student archery in the UK is many times bigger than it used to be. What happens next to the format of the competition will be a topic for much discussion.

On a more prosaic note, there are dates for the championship events in 2016. BUCS Indoors will take place on Saturday 6th February 2016 in Telford. The preferred date for BUTC is Saturday 5th March 2016. BUCS Outdoors 2016 date is still to be confirmed, but the weekend of 11th/12th June appears most likely. If your club is interested in getting involved with the hosting any of these events then get in touch right away.