Taylor Kim '20 Plans to Grow the Sport of Archery at SR
Taylor Kim competed in the 2016 National Target Archery Championships in Decatur, Alabama. This year, over a thousand archers participated in the 4 day tournament which was preceded by one day of unofficial practice and one day of official practice.
Taylor competed in a two-day ranking round amongst other archers in her division. After being ranked, Taylor competed in an elimination or knock-out round where she was up against a New Zealand archer. It was a tough match; Taylor won the first end gaining two points. (Each end consists of 3 arrows and the better total of the archers wins the end earning two points, ties yield one point for each archer). She lost the second end to tie the match, 2 to 2. Taylor came back strong to take the lead 4 to 2 in the third end. The first to 5 earned points or more wins the match. If Taylor were to tie the next end, one point would be awarded to each archer in which case, Taylor would win with her 5 points earned. However, she took the next end earning 2 points for a total of 6 to secure the win. A lifelong friendship was formed and future related activities including virtual competition via Skype or similar application are now planned between the two ladies.
Taylor then faced the number two ranked archer in her division from Taipei. It was a very tight match and on-lookers were on edge. It was a fierce and exciting match that gave the archer from Taipei a good run for the money. But in the end, Taylor lost but not by much.
Taylor, who shoots a discipline of archery called the Olympic Recurve style, is a current member of USA Archery and is a Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) member of the Tri-Fletch Archers. The Tri-Fletch Archers represents young archers from Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. Stone Ridge Athletic Director, Jason McGee has enthusiastically agreed to work with Taylor and her coach, Dean Villanueva, to start up a new archery club for the school in the 2016-2017 school year in an effort to help promote archery. Moreover, archery is now planed to be part of the Physical Education Program at Stone Ridge.
Article by Coach Dean Villanueva of the Tri-Fletch Archers and Certified Level 3 NTS Coach.
