Many of the Ashville High School archers are former national champs from when they competed as middle school archers.

This past Friday, these archers were in Louisville, Ky., competing for another national title at the National Archery in the Schools Program.

They finished the competition with a team score of 3,273, good enough for 33rd nationally.

With the Ashville archers being part of 8,174 archers who registered to compete at NASP, they helped break a Guinness Book of World Records with the number of archers at one tournament. It broke the record that was set in Asia five years ago.

AHS coach Angie Sanders said shooting a late flight on Friday night at 7 p.m. was a little difficult for her archers.

“It was a little different, and I think they were a little nervous coming into it,” Sanders said. “Overall though, I think they shot pretty good. We had a pretty good flight.”

Sanders said Korey McKay shot a 296, best on the team.

Micah Baker, 17, a junior at Ashville High, is glad he has one more year to make it to the nationals. Basically, he is glad to have one more chance, because he knows he did not shoot his best Friday night.

It is his seventh year to compete, and it pleases him to know he was part of the very first national championship team AMS had in 2008.

He shot a 272 at this year’s national event. The highest he has ever shot in competition was 290, back in 2008.

“Everyone was very nervous,” Baker said. “We all shot the very best that we could, but most of us had a bad day.”

“This is a good group of kids,” Sanders said. “They are all well-behaved. I have enjoyed working with them this year. This is the first time I have attended nationals, but these archers have been here before, and are former middle school national champions. I am very impressed with how nationals are run here.”

The top 12 archers (eight boys and four girls) for Ashville High were Korey McKay, 296; Steven Reynolds, 287; Caleb Wise, 284; Elijah Bice, 283; Carson Canant, 282; Will Wakefield, 278; Patrick Woodard, 277; Hunter Roberts, 274; Kirsten Johnson, 269; Jordan Barnard, 254; Kaylee Bollinger, 254; and Madison Vann, 235.

Contact Gary Hanner at ghanner@thestclairtimes.com.