In the annual County of London Archery Association (CLAA) Championships, Imperial had a near miss from winning the day, despite some very impressive individual results.

The competition saw Imperial fielding a senior squad of 5 recurve archers and a compound, plus a 4 archer novice team at Langdon High School in East Ham, home to the Newham Archers. The competition was a standard Portsmouth round, with teams to consist either at least 1 female, novice or junior archer.

At the competition Imperial managed to secure both individual titles, with Jordan Muscatello winning the Gents recurve category with 568 points, and Alex Crampton-Platt winning the Lady recurve category with 540 points. Maria Papallou also won the Lady novice recurve category with 469 points.

With the absence of the a novice team category, Jordan, along with Robin Baumgarten (549), Alex and Edmund Lam (520) formed the Imperial Team scoring a total of 2178 points. However Newham Archers’s 2195 points was just a little too much for the Imperial archers, who as a result came second in the Team award.

Two badges were awarded today. These are Full Black for Robin and Half Blue for Ashley Throop, with 493 points.

Upcoming competitions for Imperial include the British University Team Challenge (BUTC) on 28th February at Swansea, and the BUCS Indoor Championships on 7th March in Loughborough.

The Valentine’s weekend proved to be a busy one for archers in the South East region, with a total of 3 matches scheduled (1 on Saturday 14th and 2 on Sunday 15th). Imperial was one of the 9 university teams called to the range on Sunday 15th February for its third SEAL fixture this session.

Imperial joined the University of London Union (ULU) in a visit to Canterbury to shoot against Kent, who is hosting the match. Following Imperial’s defeat by Surrey two weeks ago this match was well considered as the competition for second, third and fourth position in the SEAL senior league.

In this intense competition, the Imperial senior team proved themselves to be too much for both ULU and Kent, with Jordan Muscatello (560), Rhys Coombs (555), Edmund Lam (538) and Chris Eames (530) shooting a total of 2183, their best Portsmouth team score of the season so far. Kent was second with 2161 and ULU finished a distant third.

There are also good news from the novices. The Imperial noivce team remained unbeaten in SEAL, with Maria Papallou (494), Nathan March (485) and Henry Tredidgo (371) shooting a total of 1370, also their best Portsmouth score in the season so far. Kent and ULU novice teams once again found themselves in second and third place respectively.

Individual results are mixed. Despite impressive scores shot by the senior team, Rhys (3rd gents recurve) and Jordan (2nd gents recurve) both lost to Sam Perkins from Kent, who won the Gents recurve title. Alex Crampton-Platt having been the only lady recurve won the title, although her 524 would have been too much for any lady novices to threaten her title anyway. Nathan successfully won the Gents novice recurve title, yet Maria failed to defend her ladies novice title and became second at the match.

A very notable achievement of the day was the 4 Personal Bests shot at the match. These include Rhys with 555, Ashley Throop with 513, Maria with 494 and Nathan with 485. These PBs means that the four archers were all awarded their nominated badges (Full Black for Rhys, Half Blues for Maria and Nathan, and Half Black for Ashley).

Another note is to Surrey who was originally scheduled to shoot against Brunel and Essex on the same day. It was reported that this match was postponed, hence leaving the owner to this year’s SEAL title unresolved. Being the only team to have remained unbeaten, Surrey’s win in this match would mean that they are successful in defending the SEAL title this year, otherwise Imperial will gain their chance to recapture the lost title.

After the match, Imperial remained at 4th position in the senior league, lead in order by Kent, ULU and Surrey. Kent and ULU both finished all 4 fixtures while Surrey has 1 more to go. On the novice league Imperial took the lead with 1 more match to go, following by ULU and Kent, who both finished all 4 fixtures.
The last SEAL match for Imperial is against Essex and Southampton, provisionally scheduled for 15th March, 2009 at Wilson House.

After a heavily competed match in Guildford, Imperial left with some mixed results. Although our novice team won comfortably, our senior team suffered a narrow defeat, which almost eliminates our chances to reclaim the SEAL trophy, currently held by Surrey.

Imperial joined Reading in a visit to Surrey on Saturday 31st January 2009. 10 archers, 7 seniors and 3 novices, arrived at Surrey to find themselves competing with a largely recurve team from Surrey and a relatively small team from Reading, with a mix of recurves and barebows. At the end of the match, the senior team, formed by Jordan Muscetallo (562), Alexandra Crampton-Platt (543), Robin Baumgarten (531) and Edmund Lam (519), found themselves to have scored a close defeat of 2155 points, against 2172 from Surrey. The Reading senior team, with 1191 points, was a distant third. The close 17 point defeat means that Surrey is currently the only team to have won all matches, leaving other teams, in particular Imperial, in a disadvantage to prevent their defense of the SEAL trophy. Currently Imperial is third on the senior league, preceded by Surrey and Kent, both of which shot one more match than Imperial.

On the more positive side, the Imperial novice team scored another victory to pave their way to victory. Maria Papallou (477), Henry Tregidyo (430) and Nathan March (305) scored a total of 1212 points that gave them a wide 104 point lead before the Surrey novice team, which got 1108 points. The Reading Novice team also found themselves a distant third, with 697 points. Currently the Imperial novice team also stands third in the novice team, preceded by Kent with one more match shot, and Essex over aggregate scores.

In addition, 4 badges were awarded during the match. These go to Alex (Full Black), Ian Connelly (Half Blue, 518), Maria (Half Black) and Henry (Half Black).

The next SEAL match for Imperial is scheduled for 15th February, 2009 against Kent and University of London archers, to be held by Kent.