A new season for the archery team has arrived. The first practice of the sport is underway and three anxious coaches are ready to teach their first bow-shooting lesson.

A handful of students walk into the practice gym, clearly short of a full team. Despite the small number, the coaches relive their own memories of their passion. Individually, they hope to inspire in their small family the same love for archery as they’ve grown to have.

For the past two years, the coaches have been working hard to recruit more students onto the team.

“We’re still rebuilding our program,” says Head Coach Cory White. “When Coach Roger Ritchie left the program, we saw a large drop in the number of participants.”

He adds that the team had a slow start as the entire organization underwent a change from being a simple sport to a school-sanctioned program.

Assistant Coach Sherrye Browning elaborates on this sudden fall of team members, “Another problem this causes is having enough archers to have both a Jr. high and high school team,” she explains.

According to the National Archery in the Schools Program, younger archers can shoot up, meaning they can compete with high school students, but the older archers cannot shoot down.

“We currently do not have enough students to shoot as two teams,” says Browning. “We really need to get more high school students so we can do that.”

Junior archers Taylor Whitaker and Cheyanne Riddlebarger don’t let this decrease in teammates affect them.

“The thing that has kept me on this team is definitely the people,” Whitaker, an archery team member since freshman year, said. “We are like a family and I don’t think I could ever leave them.”

Riddlebarger agrees with this statement, saying archery has taught her a lot about herself. “Before Taylor introduced me to it, I wasn’t in any activities or clubs and basically showed up to school, did my work, and came home,” she describes. “I thought I liked it that way and didn’t want it to change.”

After a year and a half on the team, Riddlebarger feels like a part of something bigger. “Now that I have become a part of the team,” she says, “I have learned what a positive impact a group of people with common interest can have on your life.”

This year, the program has high hopes for a successful season. The team’s motto, “Shooting For State, One Arrow At A Time,” stays on the back of their minds as they continue to grow together.

“While we’re always learning and striving to improve, we believe in the team approach,” Coach White says. “Whether it’s setting up heavy targets, or packing up equipment, we do it together, and with a lot of laughs!”

The archery team hopes that their cohesiveness and laughs can carry them to the state competition in April.