Today in Sycamore Park UCLA hosted an archery tournament against USC with a lot of their beginner archers getting the chance to shoot in a competitive environment for the first time.
    The clear weather was perfect for shooting, and the Bruins took advantage of that with a great showing. A lot of the archers had never competed before, but you wouldn't have known from watching them shoot as they were all calm and collected. This event had small targets, only 40cm in diameter at a distance of 18 metres—which makes the beginner archers' performances even more impressive. The archers competed across several divisions, split by experience and bow type.
    The morning started with individual events in barebow, recurve, bow hunter, and compound bow. The Bruins had great results across the individual events, with all the archers doing well across the ten ends. They shot with confidence and it really showed in their results. Karen Cavicchio shot several great rounds to place first in the Barebow Beginner Women's event, while the Bruins swept the Barebow Beginner Men's event with Gerald Diep-Tran, Darren Liou, and Edward Tang placing first, second, and third respectively. Special mention should also go to Kay Niu for beautiful shooting that propelled her to first place in the Women's Recurve Event, and Eric Qu who won the Men's Recurve Event.
    The event continued with the team competitions, also divided across different bow types. Once again, the Bruins showed that their hard work is paying off with wins across the divisions. The Bow Hunter team did especially well, pulling off an impressive win against the USC team.
    Overall, the Bruins shot really well and kept up this high standard across the day to achieve these great results. Club president Angela Lam was especially proud of this team of novice archers, saying, "This is a tournament geared for beginners, so they got to see what it's like to compete against another school." She emphasised that, "everybody did really well today, especially as it's their first taste of a real tournament. It gives them a good idea of what to expect, and a baseline for them to work on for the rest of the season." From the impressive results today, it certainly looks like it'll be a good season ahead for Bruin Archery.
    Look out for UCLA Archery at their next event, the Easton Collegiate Competition in January.
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