UK Student Archery Association

Imperial win SEAL 1 [04/Dec/19]

SEAL league match 1 took place over the weekend of the 23rd/24th November hosted by London, Kent, Anglia Ruskin, Reading and Sussex. League tables and results are available in full on the SEAL 2019/20 page.

Defending champions Imperial won the first SEAL match of the season, posting a total of 2195. This turned out to be enough for the win, by a margin of almost 50 points - in fact the gap from 1st to 3rd was 81. East Anglia were the closest contenders, finishing second with 2146. The contest for third could hardly have been closed. Essex and Surrey actually shot eyeball to eyeball in Kent and it all came down to a single point. Essex grabbed third spot on 2114, Surrey on 2113 in fourth. Southampton were the only other side to break 2000, on 2037, as sixth place Anglia Ruskin got 1999.

Lauren Bann (Essex) was top scorer in the match individually with her 579 making sure of third place overall. Charis Charalambous (East Anglia) was top gent on 572, with Jonas Skackauskas (Brunel) on 568 and Yin Chan (Imperial) with 565 the top score in his side's winning total.

East Anglia Essex's third spot in a SEAL match is their first podium finish since SEAL adopted the all vs all format in 2011/12 - they have finished 4th in six matches in that period. The 13 league points they collected is more than in their entire 2017/18 campaign. Royal Holloway made their SEAL debuts in the match. The senior team was 14th, with a top score of 529 from Alex Cordaro.

In the opening SEAL novice match, London scored 1317 and were top with Southampton's 1284, just enough to push Anglia Ruskin in to third with 1273. This result is ARU's first SEAL team podium finish - senior or novice - since they joined in 2016/17. Imperial were the final side over 1200 in the match. Ethan Weiss (London) was top individual on 491.

SEAL clubs will get the chance to do it all over again on the weekend of 7th/8th December.

Royal Holloway have only just become SEAL's (15th and) newest club. They might soon be overtake as a new page has just been added to the Club Directory for a club at the University of Bedfordshire, based in Luton.