LAWRENCEBURG — The Anderson County Boys’/Coed archery team took a big step toward repeating as the Kentucky High School Athletic Association state champions two weekends ago when the team won the Region Five Tournament which was held at Anderson County Middle School. With the win, the Bearcats advance to the KHSAA State Archery Tournament, which […]
LAWRENCEBURG — The Anderson County Boys’/Coed archery team took a big step toward repeating as the Kentucky High School Athletic Association state champions two weekends ago when the team won the Region Five Tournament which was held at Anderson County Middle School.
With the win, the Bearcats advance to the KHSAA State Archery Tournament, which will be held on April 17 in Lexington at the Central Bank Center.
Just a week earlier, the Bearcat program had won the National Archery in Schools Program (NASP) Kentucky State Championship 3D event for the third straight time. The KHSAA tournament is a bullseye format. All NASP events are Co-Ed while the KHSAA has both Boys/Coed as well as Girls’ divisions. The KHSAA regionals and state tournament are the only time during the season in which the teams do not have to be Co-Ed, but Anderson County opts to stick with the Co-Ed format for its top team.
The scoring is also different between KHSAA and NASP events. The KHSAA allows each team to have up to 12 shooters. The top seven scores out of those 12 are used to create the ‘team’ score. In NASP, it is 25 shooters with the top 12 scores being part of the ‘team’ total.
A perfect individual score in any format is 300. The KHSAA is a ‘bullseye’ only tournament. So, a perfect team score would be 2,100.
There were seven teams in the Region Five event this season for the Boys/Coed division.
Anderson County made it look easy as the Bearcats had seven of the top 12 scores to tally 1,996 points. That score was well ahead of runner-up Franklin County that had a score of 1,932.
Also participating as teams were Frankfort High School, Grant County, North Oldham, Shelby County and Western Hills.
The top two teams and then the top three individuals not on those two teams qualified for the KHSAA State Championships.
Leading the way for Anderson County was senior Arlena Cox and junior Ryan Heng as both posted scores of 289. Finishing fifth overall was Anderson County senior Dalton Poole. The Bearcats also got a 287 from Breanna Woodside, a senior, as she finished sixth while Courtney Moore, senior, had a 285 and finished seventh.
Rounding out the team score were a pair of 279 scores from Layla Prestenbach, a senior, and freshman Adrianna Montgomery.
The Bearcats had plenty of strong backup as the team also got a 278 from 7th-grader Carter Hatchell while sophomore Zachary Cummins had a 277. Anderson County also got a 266 from junior Alanah Bryant, a 262 by senior Sloane Mathews and a 251 from senior Conner Glass.
Region Five
Girls Tournament
There were only six teams in the girls’ division and Anderson County came up just short of advancing to the state tournament as the squad finished third with a score of 1,940. This was really close as Franklin County won with a score of 1,950 while Western Hills was second with a score of 1,943. The fourth-place team, North Oldham, was all the way back with a score of 1,876.
Also in the field were Frankfort and Grant County.
The three individual qualifiers not on the top two teams were all from Anderson County. That group included freshman Nasimah Ibrihim who finished second overall with a 287. The Lady Bearcats also got a 286 from another freshman, Emma Toll, the third best individual score. The team also got a 282 from Gwendolyn Patton, a junior, who was seventh overall.
The winning score was a 289 by Franklin County’s Lillian Pentecost.
The other ‘team’ scores for Anderson County were a 275 by sophomore Katance McQueen as well as a 272 by freshman Torrie Garlen, a 270 from Katelyn Russell, a junior, and a pair of 268 scores with only one being used for the team score. Harmony Dennemann, a sophomore, had the tie-breaker with her 268, the same score as Anna Simpson, a junior.
The Lady Bearcats also got a 263 from Amber Willis, a 260 from Bralynn Gallegos along with a 254 from Tatum Larson and a 252 from Rylee Prestenback.
After the KHSAA State Tournaments in April, the Anderson County team will be back in action at NASP Eastern Nationals that will be conducted in Louisville.
