AoR’s Junior County Champions

Sunday 9th September 2012 and the day started with an early shower and off to Wellingborough Open Archery Club (WOAC).  The day would not be spent encouraging Lauren and the other AoR juniors in the County Championships for two sad reasons.  Firstly, we were unable to get Lauren into the shoot as the only four Bristol II places went very quickly and we left things a little too late.  Secondly, because I was scheduled for a day in the classroom and the first of my level 1 coaching courses.  Nevertheless, Lauren tagged along to support Katie and Bradley in their quest to become county champions.

As usual, the WOAC field was well laid out and everyone was welcomed by the smells emanating from the garage.  Was that bacon, mmmmm.  No time for food, as we’d arrived just a few minutes before the start and I wanted to wish Katie and Bradley well for the shoot.  The sun was shining, the air was still and it promised to be a wonderful day for shooting.  The good lucks done, off I went to find the classroom :(.

I took a stroll up to the field over the course’s lunch break and found that the conditions were still good for shooting, with a light breeze beginning to pick up.  Establishing that they were both OK, shooting well and with Geoff off with the metal detector to find yet another lost arrow, I headed back to the classroom and more death by PowerPoint.

With the first day of tuition, role play and tasks out of the way and the inevitable homework set, I packed up my things and headed back up to the field.  By now the clouds were starting to fill the blue sky, the sun continued to shine but a real gusty breeze had got up and was causing some interesting challenges for some of the archers.  The tournament was running late and I heard reports of long pauses between ends whilst arrows were frantically sought using the metal detectors.  However, these distractions had not put off our juniors and both shot very well.

As I missed most of the day, here is what Katie and Bradley had to say about their day:

Katie Bayliss – I scored 1028, had 50 golds and 144 hits.  I got the trophy for being the junior lady recurve outdoor county champion 🙂 shooting at WOAC was really enjoyable! Everyone on my boss was nice and everyone around was really nice! There was a really social atmosphere which was refreshing after the weeks I’d had. The weather was confusing because it got really hot for a while and then it suddenly got very blustery towards the end which was challenging but I enjoyed it!

Bradley Denny – I shot 1234/1296, the trophy was for U18 county champion and I thought the day was really well run and it was a good shoot.  Shame about the wind but that’s what makes it more interesting 🙂

As always, I am extremely proud of all of our juniors.  I was pleased to see Lauren taking a day out to support her friends and club mates and the icing on the cake was seeing both Katie and Bradley awarded Junior County Champion status, both beating the best in the county in their categories.

So with continued success for the AoR Juniors, I now just need some equally good success stories from our growing senior section – Anyone???

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