By: Ryan Duey
In his first State Competition, 13-year-old Weston Presley of the Sturdy Oak 4-H Chapter in Clay County took home the overall State Championship Crown in the Junior Recurve Barebow Division at the Archery State Finals on September 21st in Wakarusa.
Presley had been practicing hard on his form and shooting for the past couple of years, learning form and precision from two-time Olympic Archery Medalist Jake Kaminski. Presley said finding out he won first was slightly different than expected, due to weather.
“When I won the state competition, it was kind of surprising because it rained out when we were doing the award ceremony. So, it took maybe a week or two before we got the announcements. We were working on the barn at that time and Dad was checking on his phone a couple of times. When we found out we were kind of excited and we celebrated by shooting some more archery.”
Presley shoots a recurve barebow, which is an Olympic-style recurve with sights, stabilizers, and clickers stripped from the bow. With no additional accessories, this type of shooting takes discipline, precision, and instinct to master.
The competition consisted of two different style courses. Presley spoke about each course.
“For the State Competition, every discipline did a Trail course and a FITA course. For the Trail, it’s 3D targets and field targets, you know the field targets’ distance, but for the Trail, you do not, and each discipline has its own distance for the 3D. For FITA it’s like a mini Olympic-Style Archery Competition with the big targets but we shoot at 20 and 30 meters. We have 12 arrows at each one.”
Presley took 3rd place in the FITA course and 1st place in the Trail course. Combining for 1st place overall and the State Championship. Presley said he plans to work to compete in the Nationals Competition, and will have to change his bow into an Olympic Recurve style bow, as Nationals does not have a barebow class. He will begin practicing with this new setup in hopes of taking his skills to Nationals.
