Sagittarius Archers
B.C.'s Largest Indoor 3-D 2003

The 9th annual B.C.'s Largest Indoor 3-D is done.  The Sagittarius Archers would like to thank all the archers who came out and hopefully had a great time.  It was good to see all the archers out for the kick off of our 3-D season.  We had a dozen archers come over from Vancouver Island again this year.  The Sanford family came down from Kamloops to try our shoot for the first time.  Don Harper made his annual migration from Creston to fling arrows and help us set up and take down the course.  Several of archers came up from North West Washington state.  The crossing of the border was apparently uneventful which hopefully bodes well for future tournaments this year.

  The upper concourse of the Agri-Fair Arena was a busy place all weekend.  Karl Fawthorpe was busy demonstrating Brownings fine product line.  Jim Hatch was to Karl's left with the latest offerings of PSE.  Paul Denisen, was extolling the virtues of Hoyt to Jim's left.  These gentlemen were sandwiched by  Boorman Archery to the west and Hub Sports to the east.  The staff of each of the archery retailers were more than happy to help you invest in new equipment with a trip down to their shops.

Shoot Offs

  One of the great things about the B.C.'s Largest Indoor 3-D is the spectator aspect.  It is a place where you can watch the entire competition unfold and it has always had shoot offs to finalize placings.  This year had some very exciting shoot offs.  On Saturday, in male compound fixed pin release, Curtis Chaplin shot against Thomas Knof of Washington State.  Curtis won the event with his arrow 1/4" closer than Thomas'. Third place in that class was won by Bucom Aldride of Washington State in a four way shoot off .  The difference again was 1/4" between 3rd and 4th. Male compound open saw a five way shoot off for 1st.  Will Dueck prevailed with a hit on the mark while Kris Wentz was off by 1" and Bill Southall took 3rd by being 1 1/2" from the dot, with Wayne Meyers and Jason Stebanuk finishing out of the ribbons.
 
 

  Sunday had its share of excitement as well with shoot offs in 5 classes.  Barebow had an unusual 3 way tie for 1st.  Steve Johnson took won it with Scott Harper in 2nd and Richard Philip 3rd.  Dianne Land and Loni Mancini shot for 3rd place in female compound release.  Dianne had to let down twice because her release failed to open.  She maintained her composure and hit the target but Loni was closer to take 3rd..  Male compound fingers saw a three way shoot off for 2nd between Ian Baird, Darren Mulrooney and Jim Thorpe.  Jim won it with Darren taking 3rd and Ian about 1" out off the ribbons.  Curtis Irving took 2nd in a 3 way shoot off against Dan E(?) and Brent Milne in male compound fixed pin release.  Dan E(?) squeezed in for 3rd.  Male compound open saw a 6 way shoot off for 1st between Fred Brody, Will Dueck, Chuck Land, Dan Meyers, Bill Southall, and Kris Wentz. (any names sound familiar?)  This day Bill Southall took 1st with Fred in 2nd and Dan taking 3rd.  All of the placed results are posted on the bottom of this page.

  The speed shoot was back again this year and just as popular. The 3 top times qualified for a shoot off. Saturday saw 2 traditional archers up against a compound finger shooter in the final. Brock Paton won it by breaking 4 balloons with 5 arrows in a time of 30.72 seconds.  Ian Baird used all 6 arrows but it took 32 seconds and Dan Kelly failed to break all 4 with his 6 arrows.  Sunday saw the same competitors but a different result.  Brock Paton failed to break all the balloons this time.  Dan Kelly broke all 4 in 26.37 with 5 arrows but Ian Baird made all his  shots count and narrowly beat Dan with 26.22.  His quote was "I'd rather take home $84 than a ribbon."

 There are 2 team events at the Indoor  The original team event which is 1 bare bow archer, 1 compound archer shooting fingers and 2 compound release archers.  The traditional team event, added last year, is made up of 4 traditional archers shooting wooden arrows with 1 team member being female.  The total score of all 4 archers of both Saturday and Sunday is added together to determine the winners.  The original team event was won by the team of Steve Johnson, Adrien Scheer, Fred Brody and Chuck Land.  They scored 1142 points of a possible 1200. Turn out for the Traditional team was disappointing with only 2 teams entered.  Brock Paton, Vlad Samek, and Melody Thompson, who were on last year's winning team, combined with newcomer Ken Higginbottom to win with 834 points.

  A report on this 3-D shoot would not be complete with out mention of Steve McCartney.  Steve is the archer who shot this weekend using a mouth tab.  He broke his upper arm in August of 2002 and the recovery process has not gone well.  Much of his health problem stems from when his kidneys failed. He had a kidney transplant in March of 2001.  The anti-rejection drugs he takes put him at risk from infection if doctors were to operate on his arm and pin the bones together.  Steve was determined to shoot at this year's indoor.  With the help of a few club members and  information from paraplegic associations a way was found to allow Steve to continue with the sport he loves.  We can only hope that his bones will knit and he will return to his old shooting style.