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Archery competition held in Lawton

LAWTON, Okla. - More than 300 students from the area packed MacArthur Middle School's gymnasium for a test of their archery skills

Saturday, kids came from nine different schools including Indiahoma, MacArthur Middle School, Trinity Christian Academy and Comanche.

The event is called Bulls Eye Bash and it's hosted by MacArthur Middle School's archery team "Top Flight".

For these young archers, Saturday was a chance to hone their archery skills. A talent Trey Longacre leads the pack with so far. He has 279 points out of a possible 300.

"It's just fun," said Longacre.

Longarce's been doing this for three years now and says practicing against his teammates is what makes him a better archer.

"We play last man standing, where we shoot against the other person at the quiver. Then we play battle ship where we have sticky notes on there…a big one, medium and small one, if you hit those, then the other person has to do some pushups," said Longacre's.

Shang McKenzie is Longacre's coach at MaCarthur Middle School. He's taught this sport to students for over ten years now.

First, he introduced the competitive mostly outdoor recreational activity to Park Lane Elementary school four years ago.

He says over the years, he's seen the sport take flight, and now, the rest of southwest Oklahoma is on board.

"The field of competition is growing dramatically...and that's good because it's good for the kids to get out there and compete against each other," said McKenzie.

For fifteen Indiahoma archer students, the indoor competitive practice is a welcomed change.

Their coach says lately they've fought a lot of battles just to get some practice time in.

"We went through a series of changing in our physical education program, because of budget cuts and other reasons, where archery was supposed to be introduced in physical education curriculum. We're having to do it as an after school program," said Indiahoma archery coach Faron Griffin.

Griffin says where other teams can practice indoors during the cold, winter months, they've practiced outdoors in barns.

Indiahoma tenth grader Tyler Rhoads says that doesn't bother him because as you can see his eye is on the prize.

"We try to keep it serious in practice. We practice and try to focus get ready for competitions. Like I said...aim small...miss small, keeping your head and you'll do alright," said Rhoads.

Although this was a competitive practice, McKenzie says the real test comes February 15th. Many of those archers you just saw will compete in regionals before the statewide competition March 28th.

The winner is determined by the archer who shot the best. The competition was divided into a few divisions with the top shooters winning awards.