Archery teams shoot for state championship

DRESDEN – This weekend, Tri-Valley High School will be one of many local archery teams competing at the Ohio National Archery in the Schools Program state tournament.

Tri-Valley’s high school team is scheduled to compete at 10:10 a.m. Friday at the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus. Competitors shoot 30 arrows, 15 from a distance of 10 meters and 15 at 15 meters, and scores are added up out of a possible 300 points.

This is the fourth year that Tri-Valley has gone to state in archery, and the team has made it to the national competition for the past three years as well.

Other local schools that qualified for the state championships are Philo High School, Philo Junior High School, Crooksville elementary and high schools, Maysville elementary, middle and high schools and West Muskingum middle and high schools.

Both the Tri-Valley middle and high school teams qualified for state this year, and both will be competing this weekend, said Russ Faulhaber, high school head coach and adviser for the district team.

“They’re all good kids,” he said. “They take it seriously.”

Every student has to try out for the team every year, no matter how many years they’d been on the team previously. The high school team has 24 members.

Nicole Lindsley, a junior, said there can be a lot of pressure at the state contest, because while there are several qualifying matches for state, the state competition is the only place where teams and individuals can qualify for nationals.

“It’s exciting,” she said.

The team usually practices twice a week, Lindsley said, but with school closing several times during the past couple of months, members haven’t had as much practice time together. Lindsley has a space to practice at home, like most of her teammates, but having less time as a team can be nerve-wracking.

And it’s not just shooting well that can determine who qualifies: There is a long list of rules that, if broken, could result in disqualification. Remington Beardsley, a junior, said when he was at the state competition last year, a judge lectured him about carrying his arrows with only one hand; official rules dictate that arrows must be carried with two hands after a round of shooting.

It also can be difficult because teams and individuals don’t get to choose what time they compete. Last year, Beardsley said he had to leave the national competition right after he finished his rounds because prom was the next day.

Doug Lindsley, the middle school coach, said archery isn’t the kind of sport where the kids with the best equipment are automatically the best competitors. All bows are provided, and a student could start with a bow in fourth grade and conceivably use that same bow on the team all the way through the end of high school.

“Anyone can really do this,” he said. “It’s not an equipment-winner.”

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