At a Glance

Results (H2H):

Results (Seeding):

Full results at https://southeastuniarcheryleague.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/2016-outdoor-champs.pdf

Report

The annual silly-fest that is SEAL Outdoors continued this weekend with a trip to Brunel University. It started with an early start, not helped by the need for Tom Reed to top up on electricity in his car on the way there. When we did get there David “Boris” Williams was promptly rugby tackled to the ground by several members of Surrey University (I told you how silly SEAL Outdoors gets right?) while Soton alumni Dominic Collis discovered he’d left his bow – erroneously so as it would turn out, but more on that later – at home. SUAC set up while Boris fixed the string of an Imperial archer. On discovering Dom’s bow at the field, London decided to put it together for him, with Surrey suggesting putting his string on upside down for being so silly in the first place. Eventually we did start shooting, and so began a WA720 round. Andrew Howe continued his antics from the SEAL friendly, often having members in tears of laughter on the line, while Rachael Smith tried to hit a longer distance than she had shot at previously.

At the end of the seeding round in very humid and muggy but windless conditions, Andy had shot a massive 629, which combined with Boris’s and Sara Rubio’s scores, put them in 1^st position. The novices also had a pretty good shoot, with Jon, Sam Mott and Rachael seeding in 2nd position. Tom placed 2nd in the seeding round, and Patrick topped the barebows with a new SUAC club record! The search for lunch began in earnest once all the seeding had been worked out, with most people opting for burgers on campus and massive chocolate bars that they found in a local shop.

The Head to Heads were often close. Tom Reed’s first encounter was with an archer from Surrey who he narrowly lost to by one point, meaning he would have to shoot for bronze. Despite Patrick’s new club record, he came up against the 4th seed from Reading who started putting in some very good arrows that sailed straight into the gold and was beaten, so he would also have to shoot for bronze. The team recurve events were interesting in that the novices had to shoot against a team of 2 from London, as they didn’t have enough to make a full team. Rachael’s arrows kept grouping in a line cutter one area on the right hand side of the target, but before moving her sight they occasionally moved and scored in the middle. Jon and Sam kept shooting strong shots and eventually they beat London’s novices. The senior team had a fairly straight forward victory over Imperial’s seniors, shooting a 50 in the first end to win 6-0.

In the finals, Patrick took on an archer from Surrey, and once again struggled to find his form. The score went back and forth but ultimately several misses meant he lost it and came fourth. Tom however didn’t have so many problems and landed a few strong groups to come away with bronze. The novices hit a groove in their final, with Rachael contributing invaluable points as she found her aiming point, with Jon and Sam continuing their strong shooting, they won against Imperial’s novices, who up to that point had been far stronger than the other teams.

The match of the day has to be the senior recurve final. Sara, Andy and Dave were shooting against ex SUACer Dominic and his team of Richard Yim and Jessica Wilby of London. Although SUAC were the top seeds in qualifying, Jess consistently put in tens to keep London in the competition. Sara and Dave shot alternating bad shots which meant that the sets swung back and forth from London to Southampton. The set totals were: Southampton 46-42 London, 45-46, 47-45, 45-47, meaning that both teams had 4 set points and a shoot off was needed. Andy’s first shot went in the 9, but Dom, shooting his last arrow struck a 10. Looking in the scopes, it appeared that Southampton might have jammy line cutter and London wouldn’t, but when we got up to the targets, the scores were tied on 24-all. This meant the closest arrow to the middle won (Dom’s) and so London regained their title (and another year to engrave the trophy).