With the Northern Counties Championships just a week away, the Records Officer gave those attending a last chance to shoot a full distance Portsmouth by way of practice.
Danny Cowin managed to turn up for the second week in a row much to everyone’s surprise, to join Johnathan Gordon, Richard Hainge, Tom Rogers and David Craine on the shooting line in the Gents Recurve. Richard elected to shoot the single face Portsmouth as that would be the designated target at the NCAS shoot. Tom also wanted to shoot a single face, but the crowded hall meant that there was only room for another three-spot to be squeezed onto the boss alongside Barbara Harris and Jonathan Gordon. To make the best of it, Tom decided to simply shoot at the centre of the three targets effectively turning it into a very small, single face. Johnathan Gordon, dropping just 3 points in the first dozen, opened up an early lead which never lost. The fight for second between Tom and Richard was much closer. A poor start to the second dozen by Tom allowed Richard to edge away but after that Tom began to claw his way back. He couldn’t quite do enough however, and Richard secured second place by a single point. Danny shot solidly after a slowish start but could only manage fourth place, with David Craine valiantly bringing up the rear.
As usual, the question was who would be second to Rhys Moore in the Gents Compound. Les Corrin was determined that it was going to be him. Stung by the Records Officer’s write up the previous week, “everyone could see I came last; you didn’t have to point it out,” Les mustered up a pb despite obvious gamesmanship from Andrew Westmorland with whom he was sharing a boss. Westy slotted into third place ahead of Pete Mumford.
A tired Barbara Harris would have done better to have stayed in bed. Having switched to light arrows she found them flying high and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t dial them in, until halfway through the first dozen she realised she hadn’t tightened her sight bar up and it was moving on every shot. This fixed, she found the middle and looked to be on for a season’s best score but ran out of oomph at the halfway stage and her dozen totals slumped. Erin Hainge on the other hand, had a good morning, taking the win by a clear 85 points. Barbara was lucky to hold onto second place just ahead Emily O’Hara. Anastacia Schnettler had to settle for fourth.
Even when suffering from the after-effects of a bout of flu, Aalin George was in majestic form in the Ladies Compound to record a comfortable victory over Marie Hainge, with Catherine Irving-Potter relegated to third.
There was one man in each of the Trad, Bare and Longbow categories, with Colin Moore, Chris Crompton and Peter Howland taking the wins respectively.
Results Portsmouth: Gents Recurve- 1.J.Gordon 60/572/34, 2.R.Hainge 60/564/30, 3.T.Rogers 60/563/31, 4.D.Cowin 60/540/20, 5.D.Craine 59/456/9. Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 60/584/44, 2.L.Corrin 60/570/30pb, 3.A.Westmorland 60/566/26, 4.P.Mumford 60/555/15. Ladies Recurve- 1.E.Hainge 60/565/33, 2.B.Harris 56/480/12, 3.E.O’Hara 60/477/6, 4.A.Schnettler 54/444/9. Ladies Compound- 1.A.George 60/570/31, 2.M.Hainge 59/533/11, 3.C.Irving-Potter 60/528/7. Tradbow- C.Moore 60/460/7. Barebow- C.Crompton 60/515/11. Longbow- P.Howland 58/302/1.
Good luck to everyone travelling across to compete in the Northern Counties Championships.
Isle of Man Archery Club 