This year’s virtual Archery in the Schools state tournament will be March 25-27. To participate, school-based archery teams will shoot competitive rounds in their own facility and submitting scores through a database that will automatically rank and determine winners.
In past years, teams had to qualify to make it to the state tournament. With in-person tournaments limited this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources is opening the virtual state tournament to any school that has an archery program, which gives students from smaller schools an opportunity to possibly place in the state tournament and move on to nationals.
The 2020 Archery in the Schools state tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19, making this year the first competition since 2019.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has created some challenges, but archery is a safe sport where you can socially distance and we wanted to make sure kids have every opportunity to shoot sometime this year,” said Kayla Donathan, who coordinates the Archery in the Schools program for the WVDNR.
All school-based archery programs are encouraged to participate in the virtual tournament. For more information about the tournament format and rules, visit wvdnr.gov/archery/Tournament.shtm.
The national tournament on May 6-8 also will be virtual and is open to any participating schools.
West Virginia’s Archery in the School program started in 2013 with 18 pilot schools and has since grown to include more than 300 schools across the state.