Bullseye

The Georgia Southern University Archery team finished their season off strong with several national champion wins at the U.S. Intercollegiate Archery Championships (USIAC) in Long Beach, California. The team defeated the University of California, California State University, Sonoma State University and Stanford for the win.

More than 350 individuals participated in the competition. Ashley Hayden, who won Best New Archer, and Daniel Allen won first place in basic bow in their respective divisions, while Rachel Luoma placed fourth. Allen and Hayden won first in basic bow mixed team. Also, Allen and Luoma earned All-American and All-Academic honors.

“We practice four to five days a week for a couple hours each time. In addition, many of our archers have attended numerous tournaments to help them prepare for competitions like this one,” said Luoma, a native of Martinez, Georgia. “These wins mean a lot to us; they are a culmination of hard work, dedication and perseverance to a sport we all love.”

After learning the sport as a youth, Luoma stopped competing in archery in high school. But when she began applying to colleges a few years ago, Luoma admits she had an ulterior motive. Georgia Southern appealed to her for its pre-vet program but it had an added bonus – the renowned archery club. “When I got on campus, I immediately found out about them, started going to meetings and joined up.”

Luoma shoots a traditional, or recurve, bow. She has no stabilizers and no sights. In Olympic-style recurve, archers have those two advantages. In her first year, she won the U.S. Collegiate Association National Outdoor Tournament national championship in basic bow (also known as bare bow) in Utah. Earlier this year, she placed third in the U.S. Collegiate Archery Association National Indoor Archery Championship.

“With bare bow, it’s all mental where you’re aiming,” she said. “In our opinion, it’s the hardest category.”

When she started at Georgia Southern, Southern Eagles Archery was a small club that featured two teams, competitive and recreational. The competitive archers – the group doubled in size from the previous year to 12 members – have their own equipment and go to meets during the season. Luoma and her fellow competitors teach about 30 recreational archers on Sundays throughout the year.

“We’re generally one of the smallest teams out there,” Luoma said. “We’re not a scholarship team. We’re not a varsity team. We’re a club sport, we’re student-led. But our club continues to make a name for Georgia Southern. We usually have one of the smaller teams at Collegiate Archery tournaments, but our archers usually win many awards or finish high up in the rankings. Wins like these allow us to broadcast the University’s name and continue to make Georgia Southern proud.”

Since arriving at Georgia Southern, Luoma has won a national title, along with All-Academic (she has a 4.0 GPA as a Biology major) and All-American honors, in just two years in Statesboro. She’s also president of the Southern Eagles Archery organization. Luoma recently became certified as a Level 3 NTS coach by USA Archery, which allows her to act as the club’s coach for the upcoming season and is still hoping to be part of Southern Eagles Archery, when the school officially unveils its $7 million, state-of-the-art Shooting Sports Education Center in spring 2015.

Because Luoma entered Georgia Southern with several college credits, she will earn her degree in just three years, and plans to apply to several veterinary schools in the south. If accepted, she said she’ll find an archery club either on campus or nearby. “I was kind of upset I got out of it in high school, because it was something I really enjoyed doing,” she said. “Now that I’ve gotten back into it in college, I don’t want to give it up again… Archery’s a sport you can do for life.”

Overall USIAC honors included the following:

• Daniel Allen placed first in male basic bow.
• Ashley Hayden placed first in female basic bow and earned Best New Female Basic Bow Archer.
• Rachel Luoma was fourth place in female basic bow.
• Allen and Hayden won first place in basic bow mixed team.
• Allen and Luoma won first place for All-Academic and All-American basic bow categories.
• Luoma and Allen were given All-American honors by the U.S. Collegiate Archery and recognized as All-Academic Archery Team members, an award given to the top ten archers with a grade point average above 3.0.