Sunday was a success for several Prince Albert-area archers, after eight of them medaled at the provincial indoor archery target shooting championships, including one who scored the highest overall at the tournament, Tristan Moran.
Moran was one of the eight competing in the annual meet, held this year at the city’s Alfred Jenkins Field House.
All eight of the archers belong to the city’s Timberland BowBenders archery club.
He shot the highest score of the tournament, a 583 to win gold in the senior male category; a perfect score in target shooting is 600 points.
Normally, as a 19-year-old, Moran would be shooting in the junior category age group, which is for archers aged 18 to 21 years old. But he registered in the senior category (age 21 and up) to give himself more of a challenge.
Over the course of three hours, he and approximately 132 other archers shot 20 rounds of three arrows per round to tally points as they aimed for bull’s-eyes; a bull’s-eye earns an archer 10 points. Each ring removed from a bull’s-eye is less a point, down to the lowest possible amount, six points.
That means that Moran averaged a score of 29.15 points per three-arrow round.
After he and the 131 other archers were finished on Sunday, he said he felt good through the first half of shooting (the first 10 rounds), but he didn’t like his performance in the second half.
He said the 583 score is below his normal average for shooting, but “I haven’t been shooting as much as I should be, so I’m not overly disappointed. But it’s definitely below average for me.”
At the time, he didn’t know that he won gold, only his score for the day; he had to wait for the tournament’s scorekeepers to tally and rank everyone’s final point totals.
Another member of the BowBenders to win gold was Ashlyn Scriven, who shot 562 to win the senior female category, averaging 28.1 points per round.
“It felt good, but I feel like I could have gone a little bit better, but I’m still happy with how I shot,” she said.
As a 17-year-old, she too normally shoots with junior-aged archers, but she registered in the senior category for the weekend’s tournament.
Seeing all of the archers out on Sunday was a pleasant surprise for her, she said, especially compared to turnouts at meets in other provinces.
“It feels pretty big, just knowing that some people can only get some people to come. It feels pretty good knowing Saskatchewan as a whole can come together,” she said.
Both she and Moran recently competed in world championship target shooting this past February as members of team Canada. For 2018, the international competition was held in South Dakota.
Each were in an elite category: She and Moran were each one of three members on the national junior teams – female and male; and they each medaled as members of those teams.
Moran and the male team won bronze in team shooting, while Scriven and the female team won silver in team shooting.
Both archers use compound, and not recurve, bows.
Recurve archers use a bow and a single bowstring to release their arrows, which means when they aim and pull their bowstring, they’re bearing the full weight of the string-bow combination.
Compound archers use a bow and bowstring with a cable-pulley system. As the archer readies her/himself for aiming, the pulleys reduce the weight of the bowstring on the archer’s arm. The weight reduction can be as high as 70 or 80 per cent.
As of right now, the Olympics only allow recurve archers, but Scriven and Moran said that there’s been recent talk of the International Olympic Committee possibly allowing compound archers at future outdoor Olympic competitions.
In addition to the 132 archers shooting Sunday afternoon, there were 132 more shooting on Sunday morning for a total of 264 competitors.
The other winners from the Timberland BowBenders include the following archers:
- Cohen Quick, a compound archer from Christopher Lake, won silver with 527 in the precub male category
- Amy Lafond, a recurve archer from Shell Lake, won bronze with 366 in the cadet female category
- Daniel Clark, a compound archer from Shell Lake, won silver with 556 in the cadet male category
- Ashlyn Scriven, a compound archer from Weirdale, won gold with 566 in the junior female category
- Lindsay Cannon, a compound archer from Prince Albert, won silver with 547 in the junior female category
- Marilyn Alexander, a compound unlimited archer from Prince Albert, won gold with 493 in the master 60 female category
