‘A good reputation’

COHUTTA — With only a few hours left for scored shooting rounds, Cohutta Elementary’s archery team was tied for third place, but they had one archer left.

Fifth-grader Meka Henson got to the tournament after the team had already gone up to shoot and she was the team’s last shot to secure their place on the awards podium.

“It was nerve-wracking and scary,” she said. “I knew I had to get this score because if I didn’t everyone would be disappointed. I knew what I had to shoot though and I did it!”

The team scored a 3,206 which gave them enough points to earn third place at the National Archery in the Schools Program World Tournament in Nashville, Tenn., on July 25. They were able to beat out Shopville Elementary from Kentucky, the team that took first place at the national tournament in May.

“It feels great,” said sixth-grader Timmy Johnson. “I feel like our placement could have been a little better but I think we all did our best and worked as hard as possible.”

In all of the team’s tournaments this year, they never finished off of the awards podium.

“There aren’t many teams that even get to go to the world tournament in the first place and us coming from a small town and getting third is a really big accomplishment,” said sixth-grader Allie Mayfield. “You get a good reputation now.”

Teams from all over the country, Canada, Europe, Namibia and South Africa participated in the tournament. Mayfield said Cohutta’s team sat next to a team from the United Kingdom during their rounds.

“Getting to sit next to them and talking to them about their perspective on archery was interesting,” she said. “Their teams are organized differently over there because they get people from a whole bunch of different schools.”

Two archers from the Cohutta team placed high on the individual score ranking. Sixth-grader Caleb Owens placed sixth at the elementary school level with a score of 284. Sixth-grader Timmy Johnson placed eleventh with a score of 280.

“The last round was tough because you want to get a good score and not mess up,” said Owens. “I just took a deep breath and looked forward.”

Sixth-grader Nicole Thurman said she had a lot of fun but she didn’t think the team would do as well as it did.

“There aren’t as many teams going to the world tournament, it’s the best teams that go, so I thought the competition would be hard,” she said. “I think we did good. We have grown into a better team over the years.”

Fifth-grader Justin Willis said he enjoyed the tournament because it gave him the opportunity to see and do things he had not before, including eating his first Chicago-style pizza.

“I liked that the tournament was in Nashville because I got to see some things that I haven’t got to see in my life yet,” he said. “I think Caleb and the whole entire team did well. It feels good because this is the first opportunity that we’ve had to make it to the world tournament and we did well.”

Fifth-grader Lucas Kinsey said he also enjoyed getting to see Nashville for the first time. He said his performance in the tournament encourages him to continue with archery.

“Archery is just really fun and I know that if I get better I can get a scholarship,” he said.

Parents Celvin Thurman and Rex Mayfield said the archery program at Cohutta is doing a good job at teaching the students discipline and skill.

“It’s just a great skill to be able to have and they’re doing a good job here at getting the program to good places,” said Thurman.

“What a great skill, and on top of that the icing on the cake, getting third place at the world tournament,” said Mayfield. “Great coaches, great team, great extracurricular, go Cohutta!”

Members of the coaching staff said they are very proud of the team’s performance.

“I don’t think they fully realize what they’ve done,” said Kyle Holcomb. “Getting third in the world and second in the country, I don’t think it has sunk in yet. They’ll realize later and it will pay off for them.”

Holcomb said throughout the year the students never left practice without improving in some way, either physically or mentally.

“They really gave it their all this year and they earned everything that they got,” he said.

Jennifer Brown said she saw many of the students grow up throughout the season.

“I’ve seen kids this year that didn’t always do their best, really step up and encourage the team and their teammates,” she said.

Lauren Buckner agreed.

“A lot of kids that never really had much responsibility, we’ve seen them step up and become more disciplined and really take this seriously,” she said.

Jennifer McCraken said the coaches will continue to work hard and maybe introduce students to archery a bit earlier.

“We’d like to get third-graders more involved to be able to start them earlier, to get their form right,” she said.

Kendra Henson, Meka’s mother, said she could not believe how well the team did.

“I’m really excited for them,” she said. “They really put in all the hard work that brought them to this win. We’ve had very dedicated coaches who have worked with them all summer and the team worked just as hard.”

Up next for Cohutta archery is a parent-child archery invitational the program will host in November and the beginning of the new season in December.

“We can’t take any breaks,” said Holcomb. “We’ll start our practices back up in September and get our form back. As always, we follow the four words we always tell our team: discipline, practice, dedication and focus.”