The Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) archery team hosted the fifth annual invitational National Archery in Schools Prog-ram (NASP) shoot Saturday.
YRHS archery coach Darren Wandy reports the events had over 235 entries this year. The number was down a little from previous years, Wandy admits. The reason for the slight decline in numbers is provincials were a little earlier this year. Usually the YRHS shoot is held prior to the provincial competition. It is usually a warm up for provincials. "Kids are getting familiar with the rules and the system," he explains. Basically Good Spirit School Division schools attended.
Schools can bring as many archers to the competition as they want to bring.
The competitors will shoot a practise round from 10m and a practise round from 15m. The each archer shoot three scoring round of five arrows form 10m and three scoring rounds of five arrows from 15m for a total possible score of 300 points.
This year the YRHS team had 14 competitors at the tournament, a similar number the school had at provincials at Moose Jaw.
Wandy points out that YRHS was one of the first schools in the province to register with NASP. While it's become ingrained at YRHS, archery is still not viewed as a sport but rather as a club.
Many local area feeder school have been introduced to archery at YRHS. As a result as very good 'farm' system has developed in Yorkton to build a tradition as with other sports.
Wandy thanks the volunteers who helped run the tournament, including his parents who ran the canteen. He also expresses his appreciation to Mike Jarvis at Bird Dog Archery who was the range official this year again.
Wandy thanks the GSSD for backing NASP with training and budgets when it was introduced. "Without their help kids might not have been able to take part in the program," he closes.
