At a glance

Portsmouth round results:
Lukas Bastow, Novice Gents Recurve, 526 (1st)
Sara Rubio, Senior Ladies Recurve, 575 (3rd)
Abigail Hall, Senior Ladies Compound, 535 (4th)
Matt Story, Novice Gents Barebow, 450 (4th)
Ziheng Guo, Senior Gents Compound, 574 (5th)
Juste Valyte, Senior Ladies Recurve, 558 (5th)
Hari Kulendran, Novice Gents Recurve, 513 (9th)
Rachael Smith, Senior Ladies Recurve, 550 (9th)
Tom Reed, Senior Gents Compound, 563 (10th)
Harry Moncrieff Macmillan, Novice Gents Recurve, 506 (12th)
Nick Wilson, Senior Gents Recurve, 561 (13th)
Patrick Corning, Senior Gents Barebow, 419 (14th)
Callum Anderson, Novice Gents Recurve, 485 (19th)
Kesia Meader, Novice Ladies Recurve, 341 (20th)
James Murawski, Senior Gents Barebow, 421 (21st)
Kathryn Holyland, Senior Ladies Recurve, 520 (22nd)
Stuart MacFarquhar, Senior Gents Recurve, 548 (23rd)
Hamish Woodland, Novice Gents Recurve, 429 (33rd)
Georgios Pnevmatikakis, Senior Gents Recurve, 507 (51st)

Team Results:
SEAL Senior Team: Sara, Nick, Juste, Rachael, 2244
Women’s Senior Team: Sara, Juste, Rachael, 1683 (1st)
Men’s Senior Team: Nick, Stuart, Lukas (N), 1635 (6th)
Novice Team: Lukas, Hari, Harry 1545 (2nd)

Match report

As David, the normal writer of these reports, was involved in setting up and running the shoot, this time we have a guest writer in Lukas who kindly took notes and wrote the competition report in super quick time!

Well this is it, time for the big one!

The day out to the K2 leisure centre in Crawley for the BUCS Southern Regional event was an early start for us, even though we were shooting in the second session, with everyone except Harry having seen the wrong side of 0730. Our hearts go out to UPAC who had to be there in time to shoot in the first session. Nonetheless, the team was upbeat as we loaded the minibuses and prepared for the journey. There was some brief confusion in Frodo’s minibus as Lukas tried to find the AUX input for the stereo but ended up straddling the handbrake instead, but this didn’t last long and soon we were underway. Health and safety rules were respected with an in-flight briefing and we got down to the serious business of singing along to the, at times somewhat controversial, songs selected by Lukas, who by now had given up on the AUX cable and was using Bluetooth instead. Meanwhile, in the other minibus, Gary was reportedly regaling the rest of the team with descriptions of his two favourite pastimes, however somehow I think he’d rather I didn’t publicise what they are…

We were slightly delayed on one country lane near the venue while we waited for what appeared to be a mass dog-walk to pass by, but overall we made excellent time, passing a surprising number of potential culinary delights on the way, and at one point almost earning ourselves a pheasant dinner. Upon arrival at the K2, we found parking spaces to be at somewhat of a premium, but, with some runway marshalling, we did manage to squeeze Frodo’s minibus into one. Unfortunately, it did leave the driver’s door of the car to our left a little inaccessible, and he felt the need to leave his number as a courtesy. Patrick’s suggestion to write it on the bonnet in Sharpie was quickly rejected, and thankfully some paper and a pen were found. Soon we were inside, where we were met by the familiar face of David, our competitions officer, who registered us and sent us to begin setting up our bows while we waited for the first session to finish.

During the session itself, there were four events worthy of note: Firstly, almost as soon as we entered the hall, Frodo greeted his Dad, Trevor, who was to be one of the judges for the day. Trevor said a quick hello before promptly setting about his fatherly duties. Second, during dozen two, Rachael was so encouraged by shooting her first ever end of 30 during a competition that she promptly followed it up with two more, making for a dozen of 118! Well done Rachael! Thirdly, during one end, our very own in-house doctor, Patrick, found himself giving medical advice on the line after his partner, a novice from the University of Essex, insisted that the flurry of metal objects flying across the room had not come from his bow and continued to shoot his third arrow, only to discover that they had, in fact, formerly been known as one of his limb bolts and that he had been lucky to escape amputation. Finally, special mention must go out to our head coach Gary, who greatly added to the already significant value of his presence when he chased down the captain of London’s team, a former SUAC member and man of less than half his age, when he had the audacity to attempt the kidnapping of our beloved mascot, Parker. We are pleased to report that neither Parker nor Gary suffered any injuries during this ordeal.

Upon the completion of the round, we packed up promptly and headed off to a nearby Hollywood Bowl to let off some steam before returning for the results at the end of the third session, with one minibus going what local boy Frodo termed ‘The wrong way’ and still arriving there first. Once there we squared off against home rivals UPAC to give them a little teaser of this year’s Varsity match, which will take place in March. The presence of an extra player slot on one lane led to many weird and wonderful shots being made, including some balls bowled backwards, following pirouettes, two at a time, and many more, as well as Stuart managing to get the rebounds just right so as to score 0 even with the barriers up, and Lukas getting a wholly unexpected strike after simply bowling the ball as hard as he could diagonally across the lane in an effort to beat Callum to the punch. Lukas and Patrick shared an experience they would rather forget when they found themselves with the same score at the end of one frame, and both teams also had fun batting a stray balloon around until Patrick went and ruined it by hitting it into a glass, which promptly smashed. Thankfully, it was already empty, nice one Patrick.

Soon it was time to return to K2 for the end of the third session, where we got to work helping return the hall to normal. Lukas, Harry, Hamish and Callum made work into play as they raced to take up the waiting and shooting lines, turning a few heads as they rushed by, all flailing limbs and large balls of red tape. It was a close contest, but Harry and Lukas won. Before long the hall was restored and the podium built, and it was time to hear the results for the novice categories. Congratulations to Lukas, Hari and Harry, who formed our Novice Recurve team and won silver with a score of 1545, as well as to Lukas individually, who took gold in the Novice Gents Recurve category! Thankfully, OUCofA, who took the Novice team gold, are not a SEAL club, so this is still a win for our novice team in SEAL leg 4! Other scores to note were Rachael, who rounded off her aforementioned dozen of 118 with a score of 550, putting 31 points on her PB, as well as Nick, who scored 561, putting 5 points on his and moving from fourth on golds into first for Gents Recurve in the club this season by 1 point! These latter two were combined with scores of 575 and 558 from Sara and Juste to form a senior team score of 2,244 for SEAL leg 4, which is rumoured to be the second highest senior SEAL score of all time! Sara, Juste and Rachael’s combined score was also one for the record books, as it beat the BUCS Senior Ladies Recurve team score from previous seasons by 3 golds! Sadly, though, EUAC’s senior ladies also bested it during the BUCS Northern Regional event, leaving ours to find contentment with second on the list.

After medals and a team photo, it was time for most of us to head home. Matt P had now taken over Frodo’s minibus, the interior of which promptly took on a resemblance to something out of the final episode of Sherlock as everyone in the back decided to get some well-earned rest, while the other minibus reported a journey spent listening to a playlist entitled ‘Songs that never fail to make white people become turnt’ (this apparently just means really, really excited, and included at least one track by ‘Rick Ashley’), in addition to the goat remix of Taylor Swift’s Trouble, among others.

Overall, we all had a great day out, and we eagerly look forward to how our archers get on in the finals! Those who have qualified are listed below:

Ziheng Guo, Gents Compound
Abigail Hall, Ladies Compound
Kathryn Holyland, Ladies Recurve
Stuart MacFarquhar, Gents Recurve
Sara Rubio, Ladies Recurve
Rachael Smith, Ladies Recurve
Juste Valyte, Ladies Recurve
Nick Wilson, Gents Recurve

We have to await for withdrawals to see if anyone else will make it, but Matthew Story, Gents Barebow, only needs two people to withdraw to get a spot!

Full results can be found here

SEAL results can be found here