After countless practices and hard-earned bullseyes, the LASA Archery team’s work paid off during a recent success at state qualifications.
When the team was founded in 2023, Head Coach Kat Davis offered her guidance to direct the team’s focus and improve on weak areas, such as the archers focusing on proper shooting technique and strengthening their mental game. Davis explained how the team works to stay concentrated under pressure.
“Archery is over 90 percent mental once you learn the basics of how to shoot because, in essence, you’re trying to do the exact same thing every time,” Davis said. “When something goes wrong, what happens is we get in our head and the voice in our head that says mean things all the time. We work really hard to, for one, turn those voices around, focus on positive things, but also put enough inside our brains that that voice never even has a chance to talk.”
Davis described how archers score points during competitions. According to her, archers shoot “ends”, which are groups of arrows they shoot consecutively before scoring.
“Targets are scored 1 through 10,” Davis said. “Archers shoot five arrows at a time making the best score 50 per end. They shoot three ends at 10 meters and three ends at 15 meters. The total possible score for an archer is 300. The total of the top 12 scores for each team makes the team score.”
LASA sophomore Esme Gruber, who won second place at state qualifiers, shared her experience during practices. She explained the ways the team has improved throughout the season compared to previous years.
“The team has improved a lot in terms of practice, performance, and community,” Gruber said. “During the two years I’ve been on the LASA archery team I have gotten to watch myself, my friends, and new archers learn and grow their archery skills as well as their community… thanks to our amazing coaches and captains.”
The team practices four days a week with practices at 6:45 a.m. or after school until 8 p.m. Davis explained that this allows them to remain consistent and dedicated throughout competitions. LASA freshman Oliver Nelson described how this practice schedule paid off at the state qualifier.
“One thing I remember the most from that tournament is winning a one-arrow shoot-off, where all the archers line up to a target… and shoot one arrow, and whoever gets closest to the bullseye gets to advance,” Nelson said. “I don’t remember this moment because I won, I remember it because I had fun.”
The archery team faces many challenges during tournaments, which can be especially difficult to conquer during the stress of a competition. According to Davis, the archers must remain concentrated through missed bullseyes and overshot arrows and maintaining this headspace of the team is critical.
“Individuals always face challenges,” Davis said. “Especially if they’re not having as good a day as they are used to having. When you shoot one arrow and it doesn’t go where you want, it’s easier for the second arrow to not go, and then it can snowball really easily. So, one of the things that we really have to do in archery is make sure to… only focus on the things that are happening right now in front of us.”
The archery team scored 1,671 points at this year’s state qualifiers, 75 points higher than at nationals last year. They will be taking 48 archers to the state competition and will attend nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah if they qualify during the state championship, which takes place March 25 to 26. After nationals, Davis is shooting for the team to be ranked top 10 or 15 in the country.
