University Women’s Indoor Regionals 2024: Scottish Review
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by Alice Bates
(Note – article written December 2024)
As quickly as it begun, another year of Scottish university indoor ultimate is now behind us. We’re looking back to Women’s indoor regionals, held a couple of weeks ago in Dundee to wrap up our coverage of the 2024 university indoor season.
On Saturday morning, everyone’s predictions for the weekend were overturned earlier than we thought possible, when Storm Bert covered most of Scotland with heavy snow, and the police advised people not to travel wherever possible. Communication with UKU triggered a quick decision to call off play on Saturday and reschedule UWIR as a one-day tournament on Sunday. Unfortunately, this rendered most of my predictions, which were based on the original power pools and brackets, futile. Overall, however, here at The Release Point, the broad strokes of our predictions were correct, with a few teams taking us by surprise.
As a reminder, the top 4 teams have qualified for division 1 nationals, held in Nottingham, and the 5-8th placed teams for division 2 in Coventry, both on 8-9 February 2025.
1st – St Andrews 1
Saints surprised no one but impressed everyone by taking their 4th ScUWIR title in the 4 years since covid, the only women’s team in the UK to achieve this. The St Andrews side won every one of their games with ease and a huge point difference, the closest game being their first match-up, against Strathclyde (7-3). They seemed unfazed by any of their competitors, rightly so it seems, as they won the final very comfortably. We’re looking forward to seeing how they face up against other UWIR winners Birmingham and Imperial, who won their respective regionals with similar comfort, and Leeds, who topped the more hotly contested North region, at nationals in February.
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2nd – Edinburgh 1
Topping the other pool with similar ease was Edinburgh 1. We expected to see them play well, with several 2024 nationals players returning this year, and they managed to earn one bagel and large point differences in their pool games. This took them straight to the final, where they more than met their match in St Andrews, leaving them with a well-deserved silver.
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3rd – Strathclyde
Strathclyde travelled to Dundee with a line-up of only 5 players. However, they did not let this faze them, rather, using it to their advantage, playing a chilled, accurate style of offence and valuing possession. This calm confidence served them well, and after learning from their first game against St Andrews 1, they took very convincing wins in their other pool games. In their final against Aberdeen (the 3v4 game, to avoid the game to go), they had to turn up the energy, and in the closest and most interesting game of the day, they drew on the chemistry they’d built by playing as one consistent line, getting the blocks and scoring points right when it mattered.
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4th – Aberdeen
Aberdeen women have climbed the ranks of Scottish university ultimate over the past few years, and it was great to see Rachel Pollock, an alumnus during whose university years Aberdeen couldn’t field a women’s team, return to coach this year’s women. Aberdeen took some teams by surprise, coming out with reliable offence using all their players and fiery defence that earned them second place in their pool. They defended this as their rightful place when, after narrowly missing out on the bronze, they convincingly won the 4v5 to earn their bid to division 1 nationals.
5th – Glasgow 1
As expected, Glasgow women didn’t leave pool play with the same seeding they began with. However, they did come closest to Edinburgh 1, and take convincing wins over the lower teams in their pool. The experience Glasgow gained in their pool allowed them to come out strong in the 5v6 game and take the win against Edinburgh 2. So, they’ll start division 2 nats as the highest-seeded Scottish team.
6th – Edinburgh 2
Edinburgh 2 need not have worried about their small squad size, performing better than they, or we, expected: they clearly haven’t forgotten how to be the highest performing 2nd team. Edinburgh 2 appeared relatively evenly matched with Stirling and Dundee in their pool, but managed to take the win against both these teams, leading them into the 5v6 final and therefore their bid for Div 2 nats was guaranteed.
7th – Stirling
These pool results led Stirling into the 7v8 game, where they demonstrated some imbalance in the two original pools by taking a very convincing win over St Andrews 2, and therefore earning them their bid to division 2. It’s great to see Stirling women return to nationals after a brief hiatus.
8th – Dundee
Dundee managed to avoid the snowy road conditions by walking to the RPC, and after a rocky start in pool play, they used the bracket games to their advantage, Dundee proved they deserved the final spot to nationals by convincingly beating St Andrews 3 (8-1) in the 9v10 then St Andrews 2 (8-2) in the 8v9 game to go.
9th – St Andrews 2
St Andrews 2 finished 4th in their pool, but after a loss in their final, also suffered a loss in the 8v9, leaving them in 9th place.
10th – St Andrews 3
Showcasing Flatball’s depth, St Andrews sent 3 teams to UWIR! Unfortunately, as the only third team, they did fall to all the teams they faced, but we’re looking forward to seeing these players return and progress through the standings at regionals in the years to come.
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The full results from UWIR 2024 can be found here.
Thanks for your insight, Alice! Now that you’ve refreshed your memory on regionals, head on over to our nationals preview!