A team from Heriot-Watt University has won the British University & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Snooker competition.
For the first time ever, Heriot-Watt entered a team in the BUCS competition held at the Northern Snooker Centre, Leeds. This annual event features 40 teams, this year from 22 different institutions across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The team was selected from members of the University's Snooker and Darts Society and the entry was in collaboration with the Sports Union. The team of Andrew Barrie (Fifth year and Society President); Ruairidh Kemmett (Fifth year student); Gary Robertson (Fourth year and Society Vice-President); Andrew Welford (Second year) and Ryan Crowe (Second year) came back to Edinburgh Campus on Sunday 16 March with silverware.
The team was competitive from the start and following the group stages, found themselves in the knockout stages of the Team Plate. The team had a hectic fixture schedule final day, which saw play commence at 1pm and finish after midnight. However, the team made this work to their advantage and all the players were on top form. After charging through the knockout stages, winning most matches 3-0 (It was a race win 3 out of the 5 matches) the team found themselves 2-0 against a strong St Andrew's team in the final.
'Player of the Tournament' Gary Robertson stepped up, then Andrew Welford somehow cleared to level the scores up at 2-2. Ryan Crowe then staged a remarkable comeback in the critical 5th frame to dramatically win the decider on a tense final black, and bring the trophy to Heriot-Watt.
This win is a great result and step forward for Snooker at Heriot-Watt. The Society now hope to make BUCS a permanent event on their calendar and, with the continued development of the younger players, hope to compete at an even higher level in 2015.