4-H State Shooting, July 22

In his third year of competing at the state level in archery, 12-year-old Roman Fritz of Coos Bay won the junior division at the Oregon 4-H State Shooting Sports competition held near Albany, Oregon June 20-22. Roman took home a High Point ribbon for his combined efforts in 3-D and field archery portions of the competition. Roman was thrilled with the win. “I worked really hard and wanted this a lot, but I still can’t believe I did it”. Roman attended the state competition with teammates Lillian Collins and Timber Thrall. It was Lillian’s first time at the state meet, and she brought home a pair of red ribbons in archery. As an avid bow hunter, 12-year-old Timber Thrall won blue and red ribbons. 3-D archery competition tests bow hunting skills with 10 small and medium game animal targets made of rubberized foam. The targets are spread out along a wooded forest trail. Each target is placed down a side path cut into the trees at an unknown distance to the archer. The competitors have to determine distance to the target and shoot an arrow in the vital zone (heart and lungs). Concentric rings on the targets are scored from 20 points for a bullseye, descending down to 5 points for a hit elsewhere on the animal. The vital zone markings are barely visible from a distance, so the participant has to understand the animal’s anatomy to really know where to aim. The field archery portion had participants line up at known distances of 10, 20, 30, and 40 yards on a broad, sun-drenched archery range. With 30 archers on the line at a time, each round consisted of 5 arrows shot at the familiar colored circular paper targets. The State 4-H archery competition combines the scores from 3-D and Field archery. Roman also competed in the small bore rifle competition including 3-position and Camp Pendleton or CMP courses of fire. As a runner-up, he came away with a blue ribbon in both rifle. In 4-H, the State Shooting Sports competition is the equivalent to competing at the state fair level for exhibiting animal and other craft projects.