NORTHEAST — Local schools and archers placed well in the National Archery in Schools Program provincial championships in Melville, with a Tisdale student capturing a provincial title and two Melfort schools placing first.
Eight schools traveled to Melville for the April 13-14 provincial championships: Melfort’s Maude Burke, Melfort and Unit Comprehensive (MUCC), Nipawin’s L.P. Miller, Star City, Gronlid, Naicam, Tisdale Elementary, and Tisdale Middle & Secondary (TMSS). Combined, they claimed an overall gold, three team golds, and a number of individual category medals.
Regan Squires
TMSS student Regan Squires was the big winner on the day as he captured the men’s overall provincial title.
The ninth grade student called it pretty special to claim the overall men’s title.
“It meant a lot to me because we’d been shooting there for five years. To work up from the first competition I even went to, I shot a 200. To go from there to a 288 and win provincials, it was something pretty special.”
That score of 288 put him seven points above second place. The Tisdale student also set a new personal best.
“I was expecting to shoot pretty high but that was pretty high for this age group. I thought I would be in the high 270s. My highest before used to be a 276 and then to come out and shoot a 288, it was pretty crazy in my mind.”
Squire’s run to the title included 19 scores of perfect tens, including 12 in a row, and no score lower than an eight.
Consistency was a key for Squires, whose seven-point win came in large part to his ability to hit tens.
They key to being so consistent is to use the practice shots to your advantage, noted Squires.
“You’ve just got to find that one spot and just aim for it every time.”
Squires will now turn his attention to the National Championships in Regina April 27-29.
The goal, said Squires, is to improve again and shoot in the 290s.
Maude Burke
For the fourth year in a row Maude Burke School captured the NASP elementary division provincial title.
“[We’re] just very overly excited at the accomplishment of our students. It was one of our best team scores to date,” said Maude Burke co-coach Randy Steciuk.
“We always have brand new archers that come into Grade 4, it’s their first year, so for them to shoot that well we were just absolutely ecstatic and it’s a great win for the kids.”
Maude Burke collected the title after posting a score of 2,888, some 304 points ahead of second place Canora Jr. Elementary School.
Maude Burke’s large win came thanks in large part to a major advantage in perfect scores of ten, as they fired a competition high 58, 20 more than third place Saltcoats, and 33 more than Canora.
Heading into the tournament, Steciuk admits he knew his team would have a chance, noting they had shot in the 2,700s during practice tournaments, but for them to reach nearly 2,900 was great.
Of course, Maude Burke also romped through the elementary individual competition claiming five of the six medals.
The male Maude Burke archers swept all three steps on the podium with Donavin Linden, Brayden Rogers and Elijah Maier finishing first, second, and third respectively.
The female Maude Burke shooters nearly matched the feat of their male counterparts, with Tessa Tolofson claiming silver and Kalia Gray the bronze.
Maude Burke will now turn their attention to the national championships, where they will be looking to win their fourth straight team title.
Steciuk admits it will not be an easy feat, noting other provinces, including Alberta, have “very strong shooters.”
“We know that it’s going to be a very tight race. We’re practicing hard these last two weeks working at our 15 m scores as that’s where we want to grow a little bit and we’re hoping for a medal placement at nationals as well.”
MUCC
For the sixth time in eight years, MUCC brought home the top prize in the high school division at the provincial championships.
“When we left some of our top shooters had not shot as well as they had in the past so in the senior category we weren’t even sure if we’d be in the medals and then the juniors had shot very well so I thought for sure we’d be in the medals and in the running. But we were ecstatic,” said coach Kelly Simpson, who noted he did not find out that his teams won until after leaving the competition.
Simpson admitted to being a little surprised to find out the seniors had won, given how they shot, but noted heading into the competition the expectation was they would win both golds.
The seniors picked up the high school provincial title after firing a score of 3,171, some 16 points clear of second place Canora.
Despite claiming the provincial title, it was not an especially great result for individual MUCC shooters as they failed to reach the podium in either men’s or women’s competition, with Sasha Libke and Darius Stephenson coming the closest as they finished fourth and fifth respectively in the men’s competition.
The MUCC middle division shooters also enjoyed a tremendous amount of success as they grabbed the provincial title, their third in a row and fourth in seven years.
MUCC cruised to the middle division team title, finishing with a combined score of 3,139, nearly 50 points clear of second place McLurg.
While MUCC finished eight perfect scores of ten behind McLurg, for most tens, it was their consistency that won them the title as they won three of the six podium positions.
The men’s event was MUCC’s best as they claimed the individual gold and bronze medals as Harris Kellington shot a score of 277 to win, and Hayden Gendall finished with a score of 273 to claim bronze.
In the women’s competition, Elizabeth Janzen picked up the silver medal after firing a score of 278 and losing in a tiebreaker.
Both the high school and middle division teams will be turning their attention to the national championship in Regina, where the high schooler’s will be looking to add their fifth medal since 2011, and the middle schoolers will be looking to defend their national title from last year, while adding their sixth medal since 2012.
Simpson notes his goal for the middle school shooters is to reach 3,300 and for the seniors to reach 3,400, saying if both schools do that they should be in the running to win.
“We’ve been top three with the juniors and the seniors so it would be nice to win it. We’re going to have to bring our super A game for that.”
Simpson, who stepped in mid-season, gave the credit for the success of the shooters to former coach Wade Rolles, who suffered a tragic accident a couple of months ago.
“He was the coach of this team,” said Simpson.
