After putting on an impressive showing at the regional tournament at Shelby County High School, the Charles Henderson archery teams are preparing for a trip to Birmingham in April for the state tournament.

The Trojans will be fielding three teams at the state meet for different age groups and each team will bring 18 shooters to compete, with the top 12 from each team making up the final score.

Each shooter will get 30 arrows, with 15 shots taken from 10 meters and another 15 from 15 meters with all arrows shot from identical Matthew’s Genesis bows without the aid of sights or release aids.

“There’s going to be roughly 1500 students competing from all over the state of Alabama,” Trojans coach Susan Fountain said. “It’s a big event and it’s always good to take a team to compete at state. We’ve got all kinds of different kids taking part and archery is truly a life sport that they can enjoy the rest of their lives.”

The Trojans have a strong set of players coming into the state tournament, and were dominant at the regional at almost every age level.

The high school team had three boys and two girls finish in the top ten of their age group, while the middle school team had five boys and six girls in the top ten.

The elementary school team, which is actually made up of sixth grade students, didn’t have any top ten finishers on the boy’s team but did have five girls finish in the top ten including the top four places.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Max Kersey, who finished second for the high school boys the regional tournament, said. “We all like it and it’s a different sport that not many schools get to take part in and it’s just fun. I think we’re going to do good at state, we haven’t had as much practice but for what we’ve done we’ve done good.”

The Trojans from all the teams will need to put on a good showing to place in the top spots, and will be competing against schools that have posted some strong scores.

But as strong as the competition is, the Trojans have some strong shooters of their own such as middle schooler Lindsey Fox who shot 277 out of 300 to win her division at regional and Abigail Salmon who shot a 240 to place first in the elementary group.

“The tournament is going to be a lot of fun,” Salmon said. “I hope that I do good and maybe win something. You have to come to practice and focus on your aiming so we come in and just shoot over and over until it’s time to go and it helps you hit better.”

The Trojan teams are filled with shooters ready to compete at the state tournament, and have been making use of the month of practice time they had following the region tournament.

Shooters from all levels of the team are hard at work to improve their shots and accuracy, and have set goals to achieve when they arrive in Birmingham for the tournament.

“I definitely want to get above a 280 and place in the top three,” Hannah Gordon, who finished fifth at the region tournament for the high school girls with a score of 256, said. “I was first in the state in the sixth grade so I want to reach that goal again even though it’s been a while. I’ve been practicing as much as I can especially at 15 meters because it’s the more difficult shot.”

The Trojans will be holding practices several times throughout the week leading up to the tournament, which will be held on Thursday, April 5 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center in Birmingham.

The first round of shooters is set to begin at 9:30 a.m.