Namoi Valley Archers hosted a very successful Boral Country-Northern NSW Branch ABA Championships on the weekend with over 100 archers from Port Macquarie, Maitland, Taree, Gloucester, Kempsey, the Central Coast, Glen Innes and Tamworth taking to the ranges for the two day tournament. Branch Controller, Jeff Jennings, was ecstatic with the attendance and praised the local club for their ability to run top class events. Jennings rated the courses used over the weekend as among the best he has competed on and also welcomed the long term support of field archery by the club’s major sponsor Boral Country-Concrete and Quarries.
The ABA National event involves archers shooting four rounds of twenty animal targets set in natural bush settings at unknown distances. Each day of competition involved two rounds, the three arrow round with the archer’s first scoring arrow counting and the high pressure one arrow round with archers having just one shot per target.
Namoi Valley Archer’s Ben Ireland, a two time Australian Freestyle Unlimited Champion, won a very high quality contest in the Freestyle Unlimited division winning the title by just six points from Port Macquarie’s Eddie Clebsch with another local, Sam Bates finishing just behind Clebsch to take third place. Clebsch threw everything at Ireland over the closing stages but couldn’t bridge the gap in a contest where the difference between winning and losing came down to just a few millimetres.
Jodi Dolbel continued her stellar 2006 winning the Womens Freestyle Unlimited crown with a very dominant performance underling her outstanding potential.
In the barebow Compound ranks Ken Thompson stormed home over the last two rounds to win the A grade title with an outstanding performance. The hard working Thompson has been building to this performance all year and was ecstatic with the win. Karen Hudson shot particularly well to take home the Womens D grade Compound title and based on this performance will be moving up the grades in the very near future. The Bowhunter Unlimited division also provided plenty of action with Dubbo’s Charlie Howard holding off a very determined challenge from local, Stuart Dolbel with Gloucester based, Jeff Jennings in third place. This was Dolbel’s first competitive outing in this division and on this performance he looks set to be a major force in future competitions.
The club’s outstanding junior contingent dominated the tournament winning a swag of medals with Wade Hudson turning in another brilliant performance to win the Branch Junior Compound Advanced title showing the class that took him the 2006 Australian title. The strength of the local club was underlined with club members taking home 6 out of 12 overall trophies with Ben Ireland and Jodi Dolbel (Adult Sighted), Ken Thompson (Adult Barebow), Wade Hudson (Junior Barebow) and Sebastian Donovan and Meg Jaeger (Cub Sighted) all finishing as overall champions.
Local Results.
Mens Freestyle Unlimited – Ben Ireland 1, Sam Bates 3.
Womens Freestyle Unlimited – Jodi Dolbel 1.
Mens Bowhunter Unlimited – Stuart Dolbel 2.
Womens Bowhunter Unlimited – Cassie Neuendorf 1.
Mens Freestyle Limited – Steve jaeger 1.
Mens Bowhunter Limited – Fl 1, Scott Porter 2, Neal Morris 2, Fl 2 Greg Donovan 1, Rob Porter 2.
Mens Compound – A grade, Ken Thompson 1, B grade, Ken Hill 2, C grade, Steve Woodward 1.
Womens Compound – D grade, Karen Hudson 1.
Mens Recurve – C grade, Darrell Hudson 1, Michael Patrick 2.
Junior Compound – Advanced, Wade Hudson 1, B grade, Ayden Wharton 2, D grade Keegan 1, Jamie Thomspon 2.
Junior Bowhunter Limited – Cameron Hill 1, Ben Morris 2.
Junior Freestyle Unlimited – Josh Dolbel 2.
Cub Boy Recurve – D grade, Chris Readett 1.
Cub Girl Recurve – D grade, Katie Patrick 1, Jackelyn Patrick 3.
Cub Boy Freestyle – Fl 1, Dan Morris 1, Jackson Howes 3, Fl 2, Sebastian Donovan 1.
Cub Girl Freestyle – Fl 2, Meg Jaeger 1, Sophie Donovan 2.
Cub Freestyle Recurve – Shane Thompson 1.
Cub Girl Compound- D grade, Janika Readett 2.
