19 Mar 2025
Another year has passed and it was again time for the best student archers in the UK to get together to compete at the 2025 BUCS Indoor Finals. The event took place on 16th March at University of Warwick’s Sports and Wellness Hub in Coventry.  Â
There were exactly 40 student archers competing from across eight colleges and universities: Heriot-Watt, Strathclyde, St Andrews, Dundee, Edinburgh, UWS, Abertay and Stirling. Edinburgh University Archery Club (EUAC) came second in the medal table with 3 medals – 2 in the individual (Gold and Silver) and a Silver in the team event. It was EUAC teammates Craig Mason and Ben Moore who faced off in the final of the Longbow. It was a tight head to head match however Craig edged the win 6-4 taking Gold with Ben taking Silver – well done to both archers!
EUAC added to this success by taking Silver in the Men’s Compound event. It the duo of Yang Dai and Xiangkun Kong who secured second place for Edinburgh with an impressive score of 1140 to round off a successful campaign.
Across the events, there were some other notable performances. In the Recurve Men EUAC’s Bei Nan, and Dundee’s Alex Lai made to the Last 16 and  Strathclyde’s Grant McLellan going a stage further making it to the quarter finals. In the Women’s Recurve, EUAC’s Selin Bulosi and Aleksandra Piperkova both advanced through qualifying joining Fern Blundell who was flying the flag for Stirling. All three archers were unlucky not to progress to second round in head to heads, with a series of close matches.
In the Compound sections, EUAC’s Xiangkun Kong had a tight match against Nottingham Max Harding, with Harding edging the win 145-143. It was a similar story for EUAC’s in the Women’s section with both Diane-Livie Balota & Fearne Hinchcliffe narrowly beaten by their opponents. Certainly demonstrated the high standard of performances on display - great effort!
Moving to Barebow, it was a last 16 finish for Abertay’s Kiera Malloy in the men’s section and a quarter final finish for Dundee’s William Anderson who pushed his opponent all the way with a score of 6-4. EUAC’s Tianshu Fang & Laura Mazzoni along with UWS’s Freya Rennie and UoSA’s Sharon Pisani all competed in the heads to heads. There were some close encounters and Freya managed to proceed to the bronze medal match and unfortunately losing out despite some close scores. A solid finish to the indoor season Freya!
Last but not least, the Longbow sections which as mentioned earlier EUAC teammates Craig Mason and Ben Moore who faced off in the final of the Longbow Men’s. It was a tight head to head match however Craig edged the win 6-4 taking Gold with Ben taking Silver – well done to both archers! In the women’s section EUAC’s Sabrina Seidumanova and Dundee’s Cizzie McGuinness progressed to the quarter finals of the head to heads after some impressive performances.
Scottish Student Sport (SSS) Archery Development Group Chair Gabriella Saksono shared her thoughts on the event:
''It's always to great to see such a turnout from our Scottish student archers at BUCS. I would like  to congratulate all the student archers from Scotland who travelled down and gave it their best effort, with some medal success too – well done!’’
We would like to take this moment to wish students best of luck at the SSS Indoor Head to Head on Saturday.
Full results available here