Local teams competing in NASP state championship

Pennsylvania Game Commission officials today announced that 454 students from 17 schools throughout the state will compete in the National Archery in the Schools (NASP®) 2011 State Tournament, which will be held on Friday, March 11, at the Penn State Multi-Sport Facility in University Park, Centre County. Of the students registered, 185 are females and 269 are males.

In mid-2010, the Game Commission began coordinating Pennsylvania’s NASP®, which helps school districts in Pennsylvania meet physical education curriculum requirements of the state Department of Education, while at the same time introducing them to the world of competitive archery. Last year, 316 students from nearly a dozen school districts participated in the state competition, which was volunteer-run at the time.

“Since last year, Pennsylvania NASP® has grown to include an additional 27 schools, and we originally anticipated 300 to 400 archers would participate in this year’s competition,” said Julie Imes, Game Commission Outreach Coordinator, who oversees NASP® for the agency. “As a result of the overwhelming response from interested schools in participating in this year’s tournament, we had to add additional positions to accommodate the growing number of participants.”

According to figures from NASP®, 30 percent of students who participate in the archery program indicate that they are more interested in other shooting sports since taking the archery program in school. Also, more than half of NASP® participants indicated that they wanted to continue target archery and 56 percent wanted to try archery hunting, which has a direct relationship to the Game Commission’s mission to recruit and retain hunters.

“From the Game Commission’s perspective, NASP® is a win-win situation,” Imes noted.

The competition will begin at 9 a.m., and consist of five flights followed by an awards presentation. Each archer will shoot two practice ends of five arrows at 10 meters, and then shoot three scoring ends of five arrows (15 arrows total) at 10 meters. After that, each archer will shoot one practice end of five arrows at 15 meters and then shoot three scoring ends of five arrows (15 arrows total) at 15 meters. Archers will have two minutes to shoot each five-arrow end.

At the awards ceremony, which will begin at 4 p.m., one team trophy will be awarded to each of the first- through third-place teams in each division (elementary, middle and high school).  Each first- through and third-place team members also will receive a plaque.

Individuals will receive trophies for first- through third-place male and female participant categories in each division (elementary, middle and high school), and plaques to fourth- and fifth-place individual males and females in those grades. Also, each participant will receive a certificate and medal.

Overall individual male and female champions will be awarded a black and silver Genesis bow.

The five flights are scheduled to run as follows, along with the schools participating in each flight:

Flight Three of 98 participants (11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.): Tunkhannock Area Middle School; Blue Ridge High School; Blue Ridge Middle School; and Tunkhannock Elementary School.

Flight Four of 98 participants (12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.): Choconut Valley Elementary School; Tunkhannock Area Middle School; Blue Ridge High School; Lathrop Street Elementary School; and Tunkhannock Elementary School.

Flight Five of 100 participants (2 p.m. to 3 p.m.): Choconut Valley Elementary School; Montrose Middle School; Tunkhannock Middle School; Montrose High School; Blue Ridge High School; Lathrop Street Elementary School; and Tunkhannock Elementary School.

Started in Kentucky, in 2002, NASP® has spread throughout the United States, and is now reaching around the world. By the end of the 2010-11 school year, nine million students will have gone through NASP® lessons in 9,000 schools throughout 47 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Tournaments are held at the state, national and international levels.

To qualify for the National NASP ® Tournament, which will be held May 13-14, in Lousiville, Kentucky, teams must meet the following requirements:

* Teams must be first place in the state tournaments in their division; elementary (fourth through sixth grades), middle (seventh through eighth grades), and high school (ninth through twelfth grades); and

* Teams must have 12 or more archers who participated in the state tournament and meet qualifying scores (qualifying score = sum top 12 archers with at least 4 of the opposite gender) as follows:

* Elementary School qualifying score is 2,700 points;

* Middle School qualifying score is 2,800 points;

* High School qualifying score is 2,900 points;

* The first placing team in each division from every state is qualified regardless of their team score;

* Male and female individuals placing 1st-5th in elementary division or in the middle and high school divisions.