Youth archers aiming to better themselves during local indoor round (6 photos)

Sixteen-year-old Mackenzie Gowlett has been spending a good portion of her March break at the indoor archery range at the Algoma Rod and Club.

She made the trip from her home on St. Joseph Island to the range yet again on Sunday, joining a number of fellow archers for a local archery indoor round.

“It looks like it wouldn’t be a taxing sport at all, but mentally it is.” said Gowlett. “Everything has to stay the same all the time.”

Gowlett, who’s been involved in archery for as long as she can remember, is currently training for the upcoming Ontario High School Archery Invitational Tournament (OHSAIT) in May.

The Central Algoma Secondary School student placed third in all of the province at last year’s tournament in Richmond Hill, Ont.

“It’s a good sport, you meet a lot of cool people,” said Gowlett. “It’s good to work at something, and it is difficult.”

On Sunday, the group of young archers gathered for the indoor round shot 20 ends of three arrows each for a total score out of 600, said longtime archery coach and instructor Lana Perry, who is also the vice president of athlete development for the Ontario Association of Archers.

“We got people here who are actually borrowing equipment and fairly new,” said Perry. “I’ve got archers as young as nine years old and up to twenty, so we’ve got a good age range of people coming out to practice their tournament skills.”

Perry says that although strength and endurance are definitely necessary, most of archery is mental because of the amount of focus that’s required for the sport.

“The ability to turn on that focus as you’re shooting each arrow at a time, then give that focus a break in between rounds, so that you’re able to focus again on the next set of arrows,” she said.

The youth taking part in Sunday’s indoor round all had their reasons for being there, be it for competitive reasons or simply learning the sport.

“Hopefully, some of the kids will some scores that are high enough to put in for the Canada Winter Games, and otherwise, it’s another practice step for those who are working on the high school championships or just on learning their tournament experience.”