The Troy Recreation Center will play host to the 2017 NASP Archery Tournament beginning on Thursday and running through Friday.

Troy will be one of nine regional locations in the state of Alabama over the next six weeks.

“This is a great opportunity to showcase this area of Alabama and what the Recreation Department has,” said Troy archery coach Forrest Lee. “That is a special place to have it.”

268 archers will participate in the Bull’s-eye 300 tournament over the first two days. Of the 268 archers, 115 of them will represent Troy City Schools.

Joining the archers from Troy will be competitors from Goshen and the Banks School among others.

“We are excited about the increase of the number of archers from this area,” Lee said. “We are going to have over 260 archers from different schools. Of course we have Banks and Goshen and we are really excited to have them coming. Goshen is bringing about 30 archers and Banks will be right around 50. We are excited about the participation levels increasing in this area of Alabama.”

The bull’s-eye portion of the tournament will be broken up into three different divisions: fourth and fifth graders, sixth through eighth grade and a high school division.

Flight times for the three divisions will be at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. and 1,2 and 3 p.m. on each day.

Each archer will have 15 arrows from 10 meters out and 15 arrows from 15 meters out for a chance to score up to 300 points.

Along with the traditional bull’s-eye tournament, competitors will also have an opportunity to participate in the 3-D tournament for $5. Competitors will be able to shoot an arrow at nine different targets that include a squirrel, a goat, a bear, a coyote, a deer, a bobcat, a pronghorn antelope, a stone sheep and a turkey.

“We are going to host the 3-D tournament, which is new to this area as far as regionals,” Lee said. “They enjoy both of them, but they enjoy the 3-D aspect more as we incorporate that into our schools.”

Admission to the even will be $2 and there be an open concession stand. If anybody is interested in being lane supervisors they can contact coach Lee at 268-0738.