University Mixed Indoor Nationals: a (Scottish) Review

University Mixed Indoor Nationals was last weekend, so we’ve had a look at the results and have a very brief summary of what went down for you. Spoiler alert: no medals for Scotland, but that doesn’t mean that each of these teams didn’t work hard and do well, with all teams finishing in the top 10.

Division 1

Final standings:

1 Leeds 1
2 Bath 1
3 Manchester 1
4 KCL 1
5 Southampton 1
6 Exeter 1
7 Warwick 1
8 UCL 1
9 Edinburgh 1
10 Liverpool 1
11 Lancaster 1
12 Leeds 2
13 Sheffield 1
14 Durham 1
15 Birmingham 1
16 Oxford 1
17 Cambridge 1
18 Sussex 1
19 Cardiff 1
20 Newcastle 1

Edinburgh started off the weekend in 18th, which was a perfect opportunity for them to prove they are a team deserving of a much higher seeding. They didn’t do as well as we had expected, but still managed to finish in the top half after a weekend of hard work. It seems like they had a tough Saturday, with losses against top teams Leeds and Manchester, but brought it back when they returned the next day, taking a clean sweep of the competition. Edinburgh finished the weekend in 9th place, moving up 9 places from their original seeding. For several players on this team, this was their last uni indoor tournament, but they certaintly seemed to enjoy their weekend, with some creative warmups before games.

Full gamelist and schedule here.

Division 2

Final standings:

1 Loughborough 1
2 Imperial 1
3 Loughborough 2
4 Glasgow 1
5 Chichester 1
6 Bristol 1
7 Heriot-Watt 1
8 Nottingham 1
9 Bath 2
10 UEA 1
11 Swansea 1
12 Warwick 2
13 Surrey 1
14 Manchester 2
15 Exeter 2
16 Durham 2

Glasgow finished 2nd in their pool and 2nd again in their power pool. On Saturday, they came out of a tense game against Loughborough 2, victorious. They also had a draw against Imperial 1, a loss against Loughborough 1 and comfortable wins against Surrey and Swansea. Glasgow went into their semi-final against Imperial 1 on Sunday likely with some confidence, after their draw the day before. They couldn’t hold off Imperial as well as they had, however, losing 10 – 7. This set them up for a rematch against Loughborough 2 in the 3 v 4, but, it’s hard to beat a team twice and unfortunately, they weren’t able to secure a point gap, losing on universe. From watching Glasgow’s livestream of this game, Glasgow definitely deserved to be on the podium, working hard throughout. It’s unclear what’s in store for Glasgow in the future, with most of the team graduating this year, but time will tell!

Heriot-Watt started off in 10th on Saturday, and seems as though they set out to prove they’re not as weak a team as everyone/we might think. They carried over a win against Exeter 2 into their power pools, allowing them to come out at the top of the power pool after a series of convincing wins. This gave them a guaranteed top 10 finish, plus the opportunity to step into the top 8. They had 2 wins and 2 losses on Sunday, but showed up when it mattered most, beating Nottingham on universe to take 7th place, finishing not that far behind Glasgow. It’s clear they did really well in this division and hopefully they come back next year to finish even higher, or possibly even qualifiy for Div 1. That’s definitely not something we’ll rule out for this team, but it might depend on what repercussions follow for Scottish bids after Saint Andrew’s last-minute drop out. Either way, let’s hope their yellow kit can make a reappearance at nationals next year.

Check out our UXIN preview if you missed it, for some info on the teams.