UK Student Archery Association

Lilleshall Head to Heads [30/Jun/16]

Now in their 4th season, the Lilleshall H2Hs are now the traditional end to the domestic season. There were 67 gent recurves and 40 ladies. The other bowstyles had the genders combined in to one - there were 8 longbows, 19 barebows and 27 compounds for a total of 161. Although this is a smaller field that in the previous couple of years, there were still 3 BUCS and All Unis broken by Edward Pike, Pip Tucknott and Harrison Ooi (all Edinburgh). Pike and Tucknott broke the 70m round record for gents longbow and compound with 331 and 681 respectively. Ooi scored 146, a new high for the 15 arrow copmound match.

The lower attendance is reflective of the lower overall attendance at the Lilleshall weekend, with the qualifying requirements having been tightened up.

As he did the day before, Tom Hall (Warwick) proved too strong for the gents recurve field, failing to lose a set in the first four KO rounds, before a 6-5 win over 4th seed Arthur Coveney (Loughborough) in the semi final. Hall beat 7th seed Francis Berti (Birmingham) 6-2 in the final, Berti having squeezed past Birmingham team mate and 3rd seed Christopher Avins 6-5 in their semi. Avins took bronze. The beaten quarter-finalists were Alex Goldsack (Lancaster), Sherman Ip (London), Sam Rees (Birmingham) and Roy Hotrabhvanon (Edinburgh).

Top seed Rebekah Tipping (Birmingham) won her second title of the weekend, beating Lydia Sinnett-Smith (Cambridge) in the final 7-1. This event is becoming something of a Sinnett-Smith speciality however. Last year she got to the final as a novice. This year, despite qualifying 14th, she KO-ed half of the top six on her way to silver: 3rd seed Madeleine Meatyard (Warwick) in R16, 6th seed Lauren Wareham (Cardiff) in the QFs, and in the SFs 2nd seed Charlie Birch (Oxford) - 6-0 in all cases. Tipping beat defending champion Johanna Meyer (Edinburgh) in a semi, with Meyer beating Birch in the bronze match. The other quarter-finalists were Eleonore Cossade (Oxford), 21st seed Hannah Burnage (Nottingham) and Alice Cotton (Birmingham).

Harrison Ooi (Edinburgh), the 3rd seed beat Rebecca Blewett (Nottingham), the 8th seed, in the compound final, 140-134 as Ooi went one better than his silver 12 months ago. Blewett had knocked out top seed (& BUCS/All Unis record setter) Pip Tucknott in the quarter-final, before winning her semi-final with Mike Smith (Sheffield Hallam) by a single point. Harrison Ooi's quarter-final tally of 146 saw him break the BUCS/All Unis record. Joshua Moore (Swansea) took bronze, beating Smith.

The eight longbows fitted neatly in to a quarter-final draw. 3rd seed Emily Williams (South Wales) beat 4th seed Jonathan Ellis (Loughborough) in the final. Edward Pike (Edinburgh) who broke the BUCS/All Unis record in qualifying had to beat Alex Newnes (Aberystwyth) to win a bronze.

In barebow, Faheem Mirza (Warwick) became the first novice to win a senior H2H title, beating Alex Brown (Loughborough) in the final. Brown and Mirza were second and third in qualifying with Jennifer Mankin (Sussex) first but not shooting in the H2H. Juhani Taylor (Bath), another novice, beat Patrick Corning (Southampton) in the bronze match.

With the World University Archery Champs running in early June, Lilleshall brought the curtain down on the 15/16 student season.