One of Manual’s archery teams scored a 3208, beating their personal record, while the other team scored a 2799 in NASP (National Archery in the Schools Program) Region 6 Tournament the archery tournament that was held at Atherton on Saturday.
William Custer (11, HSU) scored 290 out of 300, placing 1st in the high school division and 2nd in the region.
The team with a score of 3208 came in eighth place out of 21, and the team with a score of 2799 came in last place.
Since the team has 46 archers and only 24 archers are permitted per team, Manual made 2 teams.
The score of the top 12 archers in each team makes up the team’s score.
“Custer is almost perfect usually. He’s the first person each year usually to get above 280,” Daniel Cissell (9, YPAS) said.
“Our goal this year was just to make it to state, and right now we are in there by the skin of our teeth,” Bill Jackson (Health and P.E.), one of coaches, said.
In order to get to 2017 KY NASP State Tournament, Manual’s team has to be in the top 90 schools in the state. The team will find out on Monday where they rank.
“They normally hold the state tournament downtown at the Convention Center, but this year, because the Convention Center’s under construction, they’ve moved it to Freedom Hall,” Jackson said.
Jackson started the archery team three years ago.
“I’m an archer myself, and just something I heard it was taking off, and I felt like we had the right types of students at Manual to be successful at it,” Jackson said.
Callie Wright (12, VA) has been on the team since the beginning.
Wright said “I am the least athletic person ever but archery was just starting, and nobody there knew how to do it, so I figured I’d join and fit it.”
Wright is the only senior currently on the team.
“The team started really small and it’s gotten bigger every year. So last year there was only one senior and both of us were pretty close since we were the only ones in our grade,” Wright said.
Members of the team have joined archery for many different reasons.
Custer joined because his grandfather took him hunting when he was 12, but he only first started hunting with a bow five years ago.
“I first started taking archery because I’m a fantasy geek and I like Lord of the Rings,” Cissell said.
“When I was a kid I used to watch a lot of DC comics- I still do -and I watched Green Arrow. Then I bought a bow and arrow. I wasn’t good but I started shooting it a lot,” Zuhayr Ali (10, MST) said. “I couldn’t be Superman or Flash because I don’t have superpowers, and I couldn’t be Batman because I’m not a billionaire, and I don’t have, like, a hundred types of martial arts training so Green Arrow was the easiest.”
Songgan Kim (10, HSU) said that when he was younger, he saw the Korean movie “Three Kingdoms” and had interest in learning archery even though he was not able to in Korea. When he when to America, there was more opportunity for him to learn archery.
Jackson said that his goal for the team is to “improve every year and become one of the best teams in the state.”
