NASP State Tournament Photo Diary

The story truly begins the morning of. Or rather the night before. Maybe our final practice the evening before. Honestly, it probably began when I first got into Varsity. Scratch that, the summer of last year when I first decided I’d join Archery. Whenever it’d begun, the nerves were at their peak the moment I arrived at my first class on March 25, 2022, the day of the NASP State Tournament.

The nerves were virtually tangible during the bus ride to the venue. They were a culmination of each archer’s anxiety that had built up over the first 3 periods of waiting until we finally loaded the bus at around 11:30 am. Ryan Slifer, an archer, explained his state of mind: “I was very nervous for it [the tournament].”

Approximately an hour and a half later, we reached the Orr building in Springfield, Illinois where all of the elementary, middle, and high school teams from around Illinois had shot at over the course of two days. All of us were in awe of the large open space inside. Slifer said, “it gave off definitely bigger vibes… it felt more like an actual sports game rather than a smaller competition.” The entire team walked into the venue in our gray NASP State t-shirts that our coaches handed out to us at practice the night before, knowing we were the most intimidating team. We had a way of appearing confident when in reality, most of us joined the long bathroom lines just after. Our experience with the bathrooms at the venue was quite the adventure. Kate Koske, a fellow archer and friend, explained, “the bathrooms were really interesting because there was not any soap.”

After changing into our maroon team shirts, my friends and I decided to explore the merch. The concession stand was pretty nice in my opinion; probably only because they had a nice collection of candy for sale. I’d only bought a lemon shake-up since my appetite was low and my backpack was already brimming with snacks I’d bought the night before. Kate did not agree with me on the concessions. She said, “the strawberry shake-up; it tasted really bad. The hamburgers and hot dogs smelled like dog food.” On the other hand, Sanjay Selvam, a second-year Central archer, thought that the concessions this year were much better than when he attended last year. They had also set up a merch stand with a large collection of t-shirts and more products like vinyl stickers and other clothing. “There were some pretty interesting designs [of t-shirts] that I considered buying,” said Koske. “There were a lot of family related ones, like ‘archery grandpa’…” In the end we decided against paying about 25 dollars when we had already received free shirts for the same tournament.

At last it was 2:00 pm, 15 minutes before half of our group was scheduled to shoot. Bows and arrows were grabbed, and so were score cards. The passing of score cards is tense for some archers as your placement (left or right) is assigned on it, determining what angle you would be shooting your target from (which tends to mess with your aiming spot). Koske mentioned that she wished she wasn’t placed on the left side that day. Those of us that were scheduled to shoot an hour later took to the stands to watch and support our fellow archers (and also hold onto at least 7 phones while they shot).

At 3:15 it was finally time to receive my slot’s score cards and find our assigned targets. I was placed on my unnatural side of the right (I have a left bow-hand, meaning that I face right and draw the bow with my right-hand), but I didn’t really mind. Weirdly, I felt myself getting sleepy throughout our 3 rounds at 10 meters, and even more so at 15 meters. Probably due to all of the energy spent feeling nervous for the 2:15 archers. There were at least 5 arrows I regret, but otherwise I was proud to get a PR (personal record). A 276 is not bad at all.

The bus ride back had to be my favorite part of the day. Shortly after the ride began, our coaches revealed that our Team 1 (the team I’m in) was currently in 1st place, so the mood was high. Everyone around our seats in the back were in various states of sleepy, hungry, and elated over the course of an hour and a half which made for an unforgettable time. My friend Kate and I who were sitting next to each other had suddenly decided to exchange song recommendations for at least 45 minutes, while I shared my various snacks with everyone. A very memorable moment on the ride back was noticing one of our teammates asleep on the bus floor. Kate said, “that one dude (Victor Smith) fell asleep on the floor, which was really interesting.” Near the end of the trip we had also decided that we were sick of sitting in our seats the normal way, and so we tried every dangerous way you could possibly sit in a bus (including backwards).

A day later, once all of the teams had shot, we found that we won 1st place for High School in Illinois (out of 18 high school teams). It was a huge and deserved win for everyone on our team. Our Team 2 won 6th place, which was great as well. We had 5 of our teammates in the top 10, and 6 more (including myself) in the top 20 high school archers in our state. 8 archers on our team scored a 50 in at least one round which is very impressive (especially with high stakes). We could not have taken the win without our coaches and supporting families!

A couple days after the tournament, the News-Gazette reached out to our coaches to photograph our Team 1 (the winning team) with our large and sparkly trophy as well as interview the State Champion, EJ Merrifield, who is also from our team. Credits to Ms. Dittmer for cutting the article out of the newspaper and showing it to me!

Coming soon for both teams is the National tournament. We have been and will continue to practice twice a week leading up to May 12 (in Louisville, Kentucky). Let’s bring home another win, Maroons!