IMPROVED weather over the weekend allowed Blue Lake Archers to run both indoor and outdoor rounds.
The indoor Friday night event was a pair of Australian 18 metre rounds, which opportunely allowed new member Fiona Allison to complete her first three shoots and set a baseline for her indoor handicap score rating.
Allison set a new personal best, while the Round 1 win went to Jeff Puckridge, who led Peter Donhardt home by 30 points.
The following round had all archers on equal footing under the handicap scoring system.
It made little difference to Puckridge who claimed his second win for the night but Allison utilised her brand new handicap score rating to gain the runner-up position 12 points off the winning score.
Sunday afternoon produced the spring weather expected at this time of year and the club was able to conduct its normal outdoor event, with a twist.
Usually a single round is run with all archers competing in that round.
However, with a new archer in the lineup who needed a shorter range to gain experience, it was decided two simultaneous 90-arrow rounds would run.
A Short Canberra over 50, 40 and 30 metres was run alongside a Geelong round which featured a single distance of 30 metres.
The twist was all archers were still competing against each other under handicap score adjustments.
Garry Jacques elected to be the scoring partner for Allison in her outdoor round debut in the Geelong round, which left Paul Freeman and Puckridge to continue their usual rivalry in the Short Canberra.
Overall, the win went to Puckridge who snuck over his handicap benchmark by four points to lead Freeman home by 18 and complete a trifecta of wins for the weekend.
Upcoming events: Indoor archery – Blue Lake Gymnastics Club, Malseed Park, Friday 7pm; Outdoor archery – Corriedale Park, Sunday 12.30pm.
RESULTS
Australian Indoor 18 metre, Round 1, handicap scored, benchmark 300 points: Jeff Puckridge 301 (291 off-the-bow) 1; Peter Donhardt 271 (247) 2; Fiona Allison 148 PB (off-the-bow only) 3.
Australian Indoor 18 metre, Round 2, handicap scored, benchmark 300 points: Jeff Puckridge 300 (off-the-bow 290) 1; Fiona Allison 288 (119) 2; Peter Donhardt 276 (252) 3.
Outdoor round, handicap scored, benchmark 900 points: Jeff Puckridge (Short Canberra) 904 (867 off-the-bow) 1; Paul Freeman (Short Canberra) 886 (844) 2; Garry Jacques (Geelong) 854 (798 off-the-bow); Fiona Allison (Geelong) 591 (no outdoor handicap margin as yet).
