For the second year in a row, the Lincoln County High School archery team collected a national runner-up finish at the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) IBO 3D Challenge.
Lincoln racked up a total score of 1,716 to land the team second behind champion Hartland High School of Michigan Saturday at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville. Hartland, which finished third behind Lincoln last year, won this year’s national title with a team score of 1,733. Missouri’s Carl Junction High School and Kentucky’s Trigg County High School finished tied for third place with 1,714. The Carolina Warriors Homeschool Archery team of South Carolina rounded out the top five with 1,713.
In all, there were 108 teams competing in the national tourney.
“The kids shot great. We had a 294, then a 292, 290 … I mean, it was really good scores at the top,” Lincoln coach Ricky Mullins said of Lincoln’s 24-member team. “They did good. We’re a small team but they did good.”
“The team that beat us, we notched them by one point last year but they have 70 to 80 kids to choose from to make a team,” he said.  
Teams like Hartland also have dedicated facilities for the sport of archery.
“It’s unreal their setup,” said Mullins. “These schools all have their own place to practice. They have like 30 targets lined up for all their kids to shoot, to move more people in. I was talking to the Trigg coach and I said ‘I’ve got eight targets that I shoot at one time and that’s all I’ve got.’ The kids shoot then they back off and somebody else steps in. It’s crowded and you can’t really work with one kid a lot because there are so many people in there.  We want a facility. We want a building we can set 30 targets up in. That way I can shoot 60 kids at a time. It would help.”
In the IBO 3-D Challenge, archery teams of 6-24 students (with at least two being of the opposite gender) shoot at targets placed along a diagonal line ranging in distance from 10 meters to 15 meters. The targets are animals, i.e. turkey, mountain goat, coyote, bear, pronghorn antelope and deer. The top two male scores, top two female scores and next two scores count toward the team’s final score.
The scoring archers for Lincoln in the  3-D competition were senior Roland Taylor, junior Roby Mullins, sophomore Allissa Doss, freshmen Jacob Holtzclaw and Garrett Robertson and eighth-grader McKenzie Settles.
Mullins led Lincoln with a 294 with 24 tens, Taylor followed with a 292 and 22 tens, Holtzclaw had a 290 with 22 tens, Robertson scored a 287 with 19 tens, Settles finished at 280 with 19 tens and Doss had a 273 with 15 tens.
“When you get up (2)94 to 98, it’s just a lucky break. Barely a twitch of your fingers can make a difference. We had Robey with 294 and Holtzclaw, Taylor and Robertson they were all right there,” Mullins said. “Our girls pulled us down just a little bit. It’s not that they didn’t shoot well. They just didn’t shoot as well as they normally would – not the normal 87, 80’s.”
“But it went great. I was really shocked. They did great,” he added. “I was standing there with the Trigg County coach. They printed their (scores) off first and I said, ‘What’d you do?’ and he said, ‘1714.’ He said, ‘Right now that’s good enough for second.’ I pulled mine off and just showed it to him, ‘1716.’ He said, ‘Awww. Well, we’re tied for third now.’”
Lincoln’s runner-up finish was rewarded by more than just a trophy, with each of the local archers being awarded a $375 scholarship.
“All 24 of them,” Mullins said. “That’s 14 high schoolers, eight middle schoolers and two third graders.
The individual scores, tens in parentheses, for the 24, including the third graders Avery Wesley and Rylee Mullins were:
Levi Henderson: 285 (18).
Gavin Gowler: 283 (17)
Jacob Summers: 270 (12).
McKenzie Baxter: 268 (12).
Lindsey Phillips: 267 (13).
Emma Patterson: 267 (9).
Brooklyn Garrett: 267 (9).
Karissa McLaren: 264 (11).
Taylor Wesley: 263 (12).
Kara Lewis: 261 (9).
Hunter Cornelius: 260 (9).
Lily Nunemaker: 257 (11).
Sierra Downey: 254 (8).
Thomas Hill: 249 (7).
Mason Gastineau: 241 (9).
Rylee Mullins: 236 (5).
Avery Wesley: 234 (6).
Nathan Parret: 203 (6).

Lincoln County didn’t limit the exhibiting of its archery talents to the 3D Challenge competition, also lining up to compete int he 2017 NASP Nationals (Bullseye Target).
The Lincoln team placed 12th out of 248 teams with a score of 3,408. Sarcoxie High School of Missouri won the national title with 3,465, Hartland was second with 3,462, Lafayette High School of Lexington was third with 3,458, Castle High School of Indiana was fourth with 3,450 and Lawrence County High School of Mississippi was fifth with 3,437.
The 12 archers for Lincoln in this competition were: Roby Mullins, 294 (24), Jacob Holtzclaw, 292 (22), Roland Taylor, 290 (22), Jacob Summers, 289 (21), Garrett Robertson, 288 (19), Gavin Fowler, 285 (17), McKenzie Settles, 285 (16), Karissa McLaren, 282 (18), Levi Henderson, 280 (15), McKenzie Baxter, 279 (15), Taylor Wesley, 277 (12) and Allissa Doss, 267 (10).
Lincoln’s remaining scoring follows:
Brooklyn Garrett, 266 (11), Shelby Ashley, 266 (9), Thomas Hill, 264 (13), Lily Nunemaker, 257 (10), Mason Gastineau, 256 (8), Kara Lewis, 249 (10), Morgan Carter, 249 (5), Rylee Mullins, 245 (7), Lacy Peyton, 240 (4), Nathan Parret, 224 (1), Hunter Carter, 195 (2), and Ally McQueen, 193 (2).
This past weekend’s national competitions brings Lincoln’s archery season to a close.
“We’re through for this year. We’re going to end on that note,” Mullins said. “We are all burnt out. We’re struggling to get them to come to practice like they need to. It’s pretty outside and there are other things they want to do. We’ve been to Worlds the last two years so we’ve had to go all the way to June, July with shooting. So we’re done now.”