UK Student Archery Association

Northern Lights Part 1 [06/Feb/17]

The early weekends of 2017 have seen a BUTTS leg and Team Championship, 2 NEUAL matches, a SSS fixture and on Saturday 4th February, the first ever BUCS Qualifying tournament, the Northern Qualifier, held in Sheffield. This fixture was the very first of its kind, with its sister event scheduled for three weeks later in Crawley.

In the last 4 years, Edinburgh have won "only" one national student recurve team title, but in the BUCS Northern Qualifier they sounded a loud warning to their rivals. Not only did they top the Northern Qualifier's men's and women's team standings, they did so by breaking both All Unis records and by beating Birmingham - who themselves have broken 2300 (mixed team of 4!) twice this season.

Edinburgh's gents notched 1755, but Birmingham ran them all the way on 1753. The previous record was Warwick's 1728 and Warwick will be amongst the sides to get a chance to respond in Crawley. Edinburgh's women scored 1697, with Birmingham the only side to keep pace, second on 1674. Loughborough's double third placed teams were 40 and 50 behind the leading duo.

The top 74 gents and 74 ladies recurves will qualify for the BUCS Finals. For barebows the figure is 28, for compounds it is 16 and for longbow it is 8. Obviously until the Southern Qualifier happens it will not be possible to know where the cut is to be made, but there were plenty of strong performances.

Pip Taylor (Derby) won the ladies recurve event comfortably, scoring 582. This is the highest score by a lady recurve at a BUCS event for 8 years. Neringa Siugzdinyte (Edinburgh), Rebekah Tipping (Birmingham) and Margaux Mesle (Liverpool) were next on 576, 575 and 572, twelve points clear of the rest of the ladies field. Four gents broke 590, with Ashe Morgan (Birmingham) top of the pile with 595, beating his own BUCS record from 2 years ago by a point. Francis Berti (Birmingham) and Vlado Hurban (Edinburgh) both scored 591, with Jack Masefield (Derby) on 590. Arthur Coveney (Loughborough) scored 584 and there were 582s from team mates Roy Hotrabhvanon and Guy Matzkin (both Edinburgh).

Harrison Ooi (Edinburgh) and Chris Cassells (Aberystwyth) were 1 and 2 in gents compound on 585 and 584. Lizzie Foster (Durham) was top lady on 580 one ahead of Hope Greenwood (Edinburgh). Sarah Prieels (Edinburgh) scored 576 despite a miss. Jessica Nilsson (Edinburgh) and Alex Newnes (Aberystwyth) were both 50 points clear of any other barebow and longbow respectively. Nilsson's 562 and Newnes' 496 beat the existing BUCS records (555 and 472) although not quite the All Unis records (570 and 503).

Edinburgh won the Qualifier's novice team event with 1579. Loughborough were second on 1527. Lancaster and Durham were third and fourth scoring in the 1490s.

Full breakdown of the scores are available on TamlynScore.

Part 2 of this editorial article reviews regional league matches in January featuring SSS, NEUAL and BUTTS.