Members of the Isle of Man Archery Club were in action both on and off the island at the weekend. Seven archers travelled to Penrith to take part in the Northern Counties Championship; while a small but dedicated group showed up at Onchan.
The Northern Counties Indoor Championship consisted of a Portsmouth round, with single face targets for Recurves and triple face targets for Compound. Billy Lightfoot, Joy Gough and Peter Mumford represented the Club in the adult Compound divisions in Penrith. All three shot pretty much to the scores they had been achieving on home soil but none of them figured in the top three. At the time of writing the complete results list has not been published.
Four Junior archers also made the trip: Nathan Kinrade, Jacob Brookes, Tilly Ashton and Toby Young. Nathan put in a decent round with only one miss but did not feature in the top three in his age classification. Jacob Brookes put in a season’s best score of 508 to take the Runner -up spot in the u14 Gents Recurve. Tilly Ashton recorded a score that was just 2 points below her pb to take first place in the u16 Ladies Recurve. Toby Young was disappointed with his performance, recording a score that was nowhere near his best, and was astonished when he was named as the u16 Gents Recurve Champion. The children were, as usual, a credit to both the Club and the Island.
Meanwhile at Onchan, Barbara Harris was joined by Eric Lutes, Ralf Mitchell, Peter Howland and Colin Moore to shoot a WA 18 three spot as part of the Club’s Scratch league. Colin Moore looked all set to put in another consistent round with his Compound bow until he noticed a string serving was coming loose. This distracted Colin and his score dipped accordingly as he struggled to find the middle.
The only direct competition came in the Gents Recurve. Ralf Mitchell was shooting the round for the first time and struggled to see the small triple face target. Ralf was also hampered by the fact that his clicker (a shooting aid that helps to keep the archers draw length constant) worked its way loose and was going off long before Ralf reached his reference points. By virtue of it being his first attempt his score was still a pb and things can only get better. The fight for first place was between Peter Howland and Eric Lutes. They were tied on both number of misses and points scored by the end of the first dozen. By the end of the second dozen the number of misses were still equal but better consistency of shot had put Peter 10 points in the lead. Barbara Harris then gave Eric some pointers about adjusting his sight and taking his time between shots. The next dozen arrows saw Eric close the gap to seven points. Eric began to find a rhythm and by the end of the fourth dozen he had turned the 7 point deficit into a 5 point lead. Peter responded well and with six arrows to go the scores were level again. At this point Peter unaccountably put three arrows wide of the target, while Eric shot up a storm, finishing with a perfect 10 to take the win by 31 points. Peter was a little disappointed but nevertheless added 44 points to his pb for the round.
Barbara Harris started well but only seemed to be able to focus sporadically, and while she recorded the highest Recurve score of the day, she was not happy with her performance.
Results: NCAS Championships – Gents Compound-B.Lightfoot 60/569/29, P.Mumford 60/565/2. Ladies Compound-J.Gough 60/554/15. Junior Recurve – T.Young 60/495/12 (u16 Gents Champion), T.Ashton 60/508/13 (u16 Ladies Champion), J.Brookes 60/508/15 (u14 Gents Runner-up), N.Kinrade 59/379/3. Onchan WA 18 3/s – Gents Compound-C.Moore 60/546/12. Gents Recurve-1.E.Lutes 50/399/5, 2.P.Howland 47/368/2pb, 3.R.Mitchell 36/252/2pb. Ladies Recurve-B.Harris 59/494/9.
Isle of Man Archery Club 