BUCS. IT’S HERE. IT’S LIVE. IT’S REAL. IT’S HAPPENING. YES. YES.

Results

BUCS cup competitions started in earnest last week, so let’s have a quick recap on how all that works. The Championship is the top-tier competition for any given BUCS sport, the Trophy’s the competition for the teams who weren’t good enough to make the Championship but were still pretty good, and the Conference Cups are just for basically everyone else and are divided by region (we’re inevitably in the Midlands region for pretty much every sport that has one). Got it? No? Don’t care. Let’s go.

yay shiny things

Let’s start with lacrosse this week. The Mens’ Blues and Womens’ Blues both hosted their counterparts from Manchester in the first round of their respective Championship playoffs, and both pulled out comfortable wins – 7-4 for the men, 9-3 for the women. The Womens’ Swifts also came up victors earlier in the day, beating Bristol 2nds to advance to the second round of the Trophy, to make it 3-for-3.

Fencing couldn’t quite do the same, as the womens’ 2nds went down in the first round of the Trophy in a decisive 135-61 loss to UCL, but the mens’ 1sts beat Manchester 135-62 to proceed, while the womens’ 1sts got a walkover over York 1sts.

Judging from their horrible camerawork, it was probably for the best.

Let’s have a big round of applause for the rugby union womens’ 1sts. After a rocky season that saw them dodge relegation on the last day, they were heavy underdogs against a Birmingham side that had held Premier North champions Leeds Carnegie to 3 trys a fortnight earlier, but came up with a well-fought 7-0 victory.

Hopefully this historic run doesn’t interfere with preparations for Varsity in March.

In tennis, the mens’ 1sts progressed after their win at home to Kent, though both 3rds sides are out of their Conference Cups – the women lost to Nottingham Trent, while the men went down to Cambridge’s 2nd team.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still has to sting to go out at the first hurdle for the hockey Womens’ Blues – they came up on the wrong end of a 3-0 shutout in Nottingham. The Hos are also out of the Conference Cup after losing to Warwick, leaving the Monkeys as the last womens’ team standing in the post-season.

The Womens’ Blues in happier times.

For the men, meanwhile, it was 3-3 for 3, although only the Occasionals were playing in cup games; the Infrequents notched up a routine win over Brookes 4ths, while the Mens’ Blues claimed a win at Bristol that leaves them just one game from the Premier South title.

On the whole, it was a strong week. Only two football teams played – the Centaurs and Womens’ Blues – but both came up with wins, the latter progressing in the Trophy with a 4-1 win at the expense of Brookes 1sts. Both basketball Blues teams rounded out the season with wins, but there were some losses – two badminton teams and the netball side are out of their respective trophies with this week’s losses.

The only late game this week was, as usual, American football – travelling down with just a 16-man active roster to Southampton, the Lancers lost 62-6 to the Southampton Stags.

This kinda summed the day up, really.

Preview

Relatively quiet week for BUCS sport this week – most cup competitions have two weeks between the first and second rounds, so there’s only five cup games in total, and the marquee matchup is probably a league game anyway – in hockey, the Mens’ Blues host Bath.

They currently sit three points clear at the top of the table going into the final game – a point will secure the title, but if they lose, Exeter (who are away to Reading) will almost certainly be there to take it from them. The other hockey fixtures see the Monkeys and Hos host Worcester 1sts and Birmingham City University 1sts respectively.

Ready and poised to RUIN EVERYTHING EVER.

The only Championship game is in rugby league, as the mens’ 1sts face Newcastle at Uni Parks in the opening round. Table tennis and volleyball both have Trophy games – the former home to Derby, the latter away at Leeds Carnegie.

Football has the closest it’s had to a full schedule in a while – the Womens’ Blues host Leicester, the Furies travel to Nottingham Trent 2nds for a Conference Cup tie, and the Centaurs have their last home game of the season against Nottingham Trent 4ths.

Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow.

Both netball teams are at home, while various 2nd teams in badminton, basketball and squash round out their league campaigns.

Tennis has something of an strange week. The mens’ 2nds and 3rds are in action – the former in the Conference Cup – while the womens’ 3rds travel to Coventry, but the real oddity is the womens’ 1sts – they’ll host Warwick on Wednesday, and then host the Oxford 2nds on Saturday. Yep. Also, the 1sts probably need to win both games to stave off relegation. I’m sure it’ll be competitive.

The other weekend game is, yep, American football. The Oxford Lancers are on the road again as they look to spring an upset on the Surrey Stingers in their penultimate league game.

Nice uniforms. For a clown to wear. To the circus.