THE new year has begun for Blue Lake Archers, with a double serving of indoor rounds followed by the first of two rehearsals for the outdoor round to be run at the tournament.
Friday night’s indoor archery consisted of two rounds of Australian Indoor 18 metre.
Paul Freeman, who has been knocking on the door for bragging rights, succeeded in claiming the best off-the-bow scores for both rounds.
Garry Jacques and Phil Tremelling provided competition, but were unable to catch the in-form Freeman.
He won Round 1 by a convincing adjusted score of 30 points over Jacques, while Round 2 was a closer affair.
With only two points the difference in off-the-bow scores for all three archers, the adjusted scores saw a 20-point winning margin for Freeman.
On Sunday, the outdoor round was a four distance Sydney event, a competition the archers will see twice more before a shorter round is scheduled.
Eight archers took to the main range for the event, where they quickly set about launching the 120 arrows for the day.
It is not often the highest off-the-bow score also belongs to the winner on handicap results, but it happened twice in the indoor rounds.
No one would have expected it from the outdoor competition as well.
However, David Cross had other ideas as he bagged an impressive 1130 off-the-bow from a possible 1200.
Despite Len Bayley the best positioned for the adjusted score win, keeping his sheet free of major errors across all four distances, Cross took out the honours by 15 points after the handicap adjustments had been made.
