At a glance

SUAC team (Andrew, Nat, Matt, Janna) – 2219 – 1st

Nat Chavanich – 558 – 1st
Janna Collier – 547 – 4th
Scarlett Theron Rush – 378 – 18th
Andrew Howe – 566 – 5th
Matt Potticary – 548 – 9th
John Bowes – 535 – 15th
Stephen Fawcett – 521 – 24th
James Nelson – 447 – 4th

Full results

2013_acdelco_indoor_results.pdf

Report

In response to Janna Collier being selected by default as the driver for the previous competition, Matt Potticary was the designated driver for the day. However, this got Stephen Fawcett into trouble as he had assumed that Janna’s response to being available for this competition included Matt somewhere in the email, when in fact he hadn’t yet responded. Fortunately, he was able to come and willing to drive. In the start of a running theme, Stephen opted to not print out directions, as the trip to Eastleigh is probably the shortest minibus trip of the season. Despite the initial scepticism, Stephen knew where he was going, to an extent… but then so did Matt anyway. The actual drive was fine, though after finding somewhere to park, the squad trusted Stephen’s ability to find the sports hall. Stephen used his knowledge to locate the entrance of the building and remembered that there would be a left turn through a corridor, though forgot there would be a right turn too, and almost led the team towards the swimming pool changing rooms.

The squad were dressed in the usual club kit, though Nat Chavanich was the only one not wearing a club shirt during the competition. As she hadn’t got her own shirt yet, she borrowed a medium shirt from the club. Fortunately she tried it earlier in the week and found it was too large for her, but Isabelle Hawkins offered her smaller shirt (which meant the bus took a detour to the range) which proved to be just about too small.

The target list had been organised in alphabetical order, meaning that Scarlett Theron Rush would be far away from the rest of the squad. As they set up their bows, they noticed Scarlett scrabbling through her bag, at which point some of the rest of the squad remembered that she had left it out of her bag and it was still in the range in a cupboard. Stephen diplomatically went over to break the news to her, to which her initial reaction was to ask why nobody picked it up when going for Izzy’s shirt, but the point was that nobody had remembered the stand.

The main action of the competition was going on in the centre of the line up as Janna was wielding her new bow that she had only just set up, and she wasn’t confident about fitting her limbs into her bow. However, she and Matt were shooting tremendously well for the most part. Stephen wasn’t shooting too badly, so when Janna came over to say she shot a 4 and was disappointed as it had been going well up to that point, he decided to not say that he got a 10 10 10 in his last end. However, the tables would then be turned as Stephen probably shot an arrow off his button to cause it to spoon off the target, while when about to look for sympathy, Janna shot 10 10 10 10 10 10, which she was naturally pleased with. Sadly this was in a different half-dozen so she didn’t have a perfect 60 on the scoresheet. Nat was also shooting well, though she was starting to struggle with tiredness by the end. Fortunately this competition wasn’t timed, so the time she needed to shoot her arrows was not an issue.

Everybody noticed the dubiously named room behind them on the balcony, mysteriously with a large sign above that merely said ‘Adult Lounge’. Who knows what goes on there?

The raffle always takes place before the results. The entry to the competition included a free ticket to the competition raffle for a Quicks voucher, an event that Janna dislikes, so she donated her ticket to Matt. The raffle was memorable more for the prizes that Matt didn’t win rather than any prizes that would be won by anyone else, as on at least four occasions, the number drawn out would be one on the strip of tickets one away from one of his strips. One number was even in between the two strips that he had of one colour.

When it came to the results, SUAC were delighted to win two of the prizes. Nat won the ladies recurve with a score of 558 by a single point, the first time that a SUAC lady has won the prize. Janna’s score of 547 put her 4th, and also scored her a surprising PB given that it was her new bow. However, this was still one point behind Matt, who also shot well. The team of Andrew Howe, finishing 5th with 566, Nat, Matt and Janna won the team competition, to the apparent groans of some of the opposition. This time, the team was also rewarded with medals to give some personal glory, in addition to the trophies that are again sitting in Stephen’s house. Despite his miss, Stephen still scored 521 (woop) so it could have been worse. Scarlett scored 378 but enjoyed her day on the same target as the Whitlock twins, while John Bowes was a bit disappointed to score 535 when he had been doing much better in practice. SUAC 2014: where a score of 535 is considered disappointing by some.

Nat put on her oversized shirt for the team photos, though photo opportunities are something that the team probably need a bit of practice at since they took a couple of attempts to find an arrangement that they were all happy with, due to the significant variations of height within the team. Once that had been resolved, Stephen took the photos of the happy archers with their shinies, though on closer inspection it turned out that Janna had blinked on the team photo. It just makes it look like she’s even happier to have won, so it’s fine…