The Indoor season continued with a Worcester round on Sunday. The Worcester is unusual in that the target is a simple black and white affair with scoring zones that run from 5 down to 1. Arrows are shot in groups of five, and the maximum score is 300. In diameter, the target is the same size as the dreaded WA 18 single face but for some reason all archers find the Worcester easier to shoot. Compound archers shoot on a five-spot version which only has the two inner zones on it. The round was shot as part of the Club’s Scratch League.
The largest field of the day was in the Gents Compounds, with five archers vying for supremacy. Rhys Moore was somewhat disappointed to find that he had to shoot a Worcester since he frequently hits a maximum and finds the round boring. This time however, he blew his chances of a perfect score by winging an arrow into the 4 with his sixth shot. The following ten arrows all found there way into the centre, giving him a one point lead over Pete Mumford who had put two arrows into the 4. Rhys then dropped another point, while it was Pete’s turn to shoot ten perfect arrows. At the halfway stage, the two men were tied on 148 points each. After the break Pete carried on where he had left off with another 10 perfect arrows. Rhys strayed into the 4 again, allowing Pete to take the lead for the first time. Rhys had no trouble with the last 20 arrows, but Pete lost his timing a little and put two shots outside of the 5 which meant that Rhys snatched victory by a single point! Such are the margins in archery. Andrew Westmorland dropped just 7 points in his first attempt at the round to finish third. Cliff Graves had a couple of misses which put a dent in his score and dropped him down to fourth place. Colin Moore had an equipment failure which cost him dearly and he could do no better than fifth.
Joy Gough had a bit of a struggle over the first half of the shoot having started with the wrong release aid. This contributed to a rare miss and a flurry of 4’s which put a dent in her score. After the break Joy switched to a trigger release and her score shot up.
Danny Cowin, Alex Allen-Snell, Ralf Mitchell and Peter Howland lined up against one another in the Gents Recurve division. After the raft of misses the previous week, Ralf Mitchell was delighted to find himself hitting the target with all but one of his arrows and was convinced he had recorded a pb. Ralf always thinks he has recorded a pb, and sometimes he is even right – not on this occasion but sometimes. He finished fourth. Peter Howland did shoot a pb to take third place. As usual the fight for first place came between Alex and Danny. Alex did not enjoy the runaway success of the previous week, but he did enough to stay ahead of Danny who kept undermining some impressive central groupings with wild shots wide into the 3. Alex tired badly over the last ten arrows but clung on to take the win.
Barbara Harris gave up trying to execute the perfect shot and concentrated instead on her timing. The result was that she got within 4 points of her pb for the single face to record the highest Recurve score of the day.
Five Juniors were also in action, though there was only direct competition in u16 Gents division where Jacob Brookes and Nathan Kinrade went toe to toe. Nathan was at a disadvantage having switched to a new set of longer, more powerful limbs midweek and did not have sight marks. The change up affected his score and he had to settle for second place. Jacob Brookes added 13 points to his pb to take the win. James Hill made his first appearance this season in the u18 Gents, but a lack of practice took its toll and he finished well below his best. Tilly Ashton put in a solid showing in the u18 Ladies and Ollie Blockley shot the round for the first time in the u14’s.
Results Worcester Scratch: Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 60/297/57, 2.P.Mumford 60/296/56, 3.A.Westmorland 60/293/53pb. 4.C.Graves 58/283/51, 5.C.Moore 58/275/43. Ladies Compound- J.Gough 59/283/47. Gents Recurve- 1.A.Allen-Snell 60/262/26, 2.D.Cowin 60/254/28, 3.P.Howland 60/248/24pb, 4.R.Mitchell 59/219/12. Ladies Recurve- B.Harris 60/270/32. U18 Gents- J.Hill 60/211/12. U18 Ladies- T.Ashton 60/245/23. U16 Gents- 1.J.Brookes 60/245/21pb, 2.N.Kinrade 60/233/20. U14 Ladies- O.Blockley 55/178/8pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 