By Rob Jellison —

The Hartland school archery teams won their sixth and seventh state championships that concluded earlier this month during the 2011 National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) State Tournament.

The team from the Hartland Middle School at Ore Creek won its fourth straight state championship and the elementary school team won its third straight state championship. The high school team finished third for its second year in a row. Every team shot more than 100 points higher from the previous year.

Invidividually, Sawyer Bulloch finished first in the boys elementary division and Chris Bee won the boys middle school division.

Overall, Hartland had six boys and eight girls in the top 20 for each gender classification. There were two male archers who finished in the overall top 5 in the state  — Chris Bee (third) and Zachery Triltsch (fifth). Emily Bee was the closet female archer Hartland was the highest female for Hartland with an eighth place.

Nearly 1,000 archers in state shot in a “virtual” tournament. This means all of the schools set up a time and location to shoot at. The coaches run their teams through an on-site tournament, verify all scores for accuracy and then send in the scores from that night to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the coordinator Mary Emmons. She then reviews all of the scores and sworn statements by the coaches and posts the winners on the NASP website.

The top 3 teams from each level each are awarded trophies, prizes, and an invitation to the National Tournament in Louisville, KY, in early May. The teams will be practicing three days a week at Round Elementary School. The program welcomes all local businesses or community members to help with this trip to nationals. If you would like to contribute to help send these archers down nationals. To donate, call: 248-877-5883.

Editor's note: Rob Jellison teaches science at middle school and has been teaching archery in his class and running an after-school archery program for five years.