Sophomore Ethan Stuart has had a bow and arrow since he was little, but up until last school year he hadn’t shot competitively. When he heard about the formation of the new Archery Team last year, run by Middle School science teacher Tracy Houston, he decided he wanted to join with a small group of friends.

Ethan says, “We’d all been kind of hoping something like that would pop up. It was just something new and different that we could all do together and have fun.”

Due to increased popularity this school year, the team required all students to tryout, trimming the team down to 50 shooters.

This past Friday, Ethan competed at regionals at the Mason County school district against almost 1,000 other students placed first for High School boys. Out of the four different locations the archers could compete at Steam Academy. The award ceremony took place the next day.

Ethan shot the exact same score as another archer, tying them both for first place. To break the tie, both players had to compete in a shoot-off.

Ethan described a typical shoot-off, saying, “If you place, which would be top 5 in this case, there’s what called the shoot off, which is where you will go and shoot a round, which is 5 arrows, and whoever has the higher score wins.”

Ethan didn’t have to perform in the shoot off as the player he was supposed to compete against never showed up, making Ethan the winner by default.

However, he still felt really anxious about the competition, especially because competing took place over a two day period. After he finished shooting, Ethan had to wait until everyone else was done. The final grouping didn’t stop shooting until 7pm on Saturday night.

While Ethan was anxious about shooting during the competition, and the long wait afterwards, he said, “Don’t worry about what the people around you are doing. You just have to focus on your own arrows.”

Ethan plans on trying out for the team next year and recommends others try out as well.

Throughout his two years on the team Ethan says, “It’s really fun because there is a lot of healthy competition between everyone. I would recommend trying out because it’s really fun and I think it’s a really good mix of a laid-back activity plus still being competitive. It’s not a physical activity so no matter who you are you can still join in and have fun.”

The next competition Ethan will compete in is a local tournament, the Northern Kentucky Nockdown. After that, he will advance to state where he competed last year as well. Ethan describes going to state as a fun experience and one he looks forward to doing again. His goal throughout the season has been to enter into the 290’s for State, which would put him in the top 1% of archers there.

State will take place in roughly a month. Date, time and location are TBD.