SPORTS
Sears earns two medals at world archery field championships
After a week of intense competition, facing the world’s best archers in the mountains of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Montague County’s own Connor Sears came away from the World Archery Field Championships with a team gold and an individual silver medal.
The Gold-Burg High School senior and the son of Dr. David and Pamela Sears was captain of the Team USA junior men’s team after qualifying for and finishing first back in June at the team trials in Darrington, WA.
Just making the team was an important milestone in Sears career after just missing out the previous year. At 17 years old, Sears was one of the youngest competitors and he was competing in the 18-20 junior division.
Field archery takes place in the mountains, requiring archers to have the adaptability to shoot at targets from extreme angles and weather conditions.
At this course, they had quite a ways hike up a mountain where they shot up a ski jump that has been used in the Olympics, with the targets getting farther and steeper as they shot.
Sears was part of a three man team representing the USA against teams from Romania, Great Britain, Sweden, Slovenia and from the host country Italy. Sears shoots a compound bow while his two teammates shot a recurve and barebow.
After a few days of competition, the junior men’s team total score of 2,033 was second to Italy. This meant Team USA got the second seed in the tournament portion and got a first round bye.
In the semi-finals Sears and his teammates easily won 59-50 against Slovenia to qualify for the gold medal match against Italy.
Against Italy, Team USA trailed at the end of every pass except the one that counted. They trailed 11-10 after the first shot, 24-21 after the second and 37-36 heading into the final target.
Fortunately, Italy’s final archer missed the target as Sears and his teammates pulled out the 45-44 win for the gold medal to erupted cheers from the crowd and chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!.” Sears helped anchor his team throughout the match, shooting an almost perfect 23 out of 24 points.
“It was an awesome moment,” Sears said. “When he missed, we just went ballistic and it felt like the greatest moment in the world.”
Sears’ competition was not done though. He qualified individually as well, and faced off against an Austrian in the semifinals.
Read the full story in the weekend edition of The Bowie News.
Bowie had six players play in the Maskat Shrine Oil Bowl football all-star game. For pictures from not just the football game, but the basketball and volleyball games as well that feature athletes from Bowie, Nocona and Saint Jo, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6875584&T=1
Nocona is welcoming back Coach Sandy Langford, former coach and alumnus for the Lady Indians, as its new volleyball head coach.
Langford comes back to Nocona after spending the past 11 years leading the Glen Rose volleyball program.
Her circumstances with her family allowed her to jump at the opportunity once she became aware the position at Nocona was available.
“My youngest graduated and is playing football at Midwestern (State University),” Langford said. “All of our family is here and I knew that Coach Kara (Lucherk) was leaving. We were eventually going to retire here. Our oldest son plays college football at West Texas A&M and we’ll be two hours closer to him as well.”
She again will lead the Lady Indians volleyball program, one that she led all the way to the state title game in 2011, which is the farthest the volleyball program has ever gone in its prestigious history.
Langford kept up that level of success during her 11 years at the bigger 4A Glen Rose. She won less than 20 games only twice during her time, winning her 500th career game back in 2023. Her teams were ranked among the top 10 in the state five times and Langford led Glen Rose to the state tournament in 2017, the best finish in program history.
With the Lady Indians also having its own string of success, appearing in back-to-back regional finals while finishing atop the district standings both years, Langford is excited to not just keep the success going, but shoot for the stars.
“We are not expecting anything less than a state championship,” Langford said.
She has stacked the non-district schedule with strong, state-ranked 3A and 4A teams as well as big tournaments that will test Nocona’s mettle early next season in the hopes it will prepare them for a long playoff run.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
The Red River High School Bass Club competed this past weekend, May 31 – June 1, at the State Tournament on Lake Conroe for the two-day tournament.
Two of the teams from Montague County traveled south to try their best at the culmination of the year for the state title. Teams were able to pre-fish on Friday before the Saturday and Sunday competition. On Friday, there was a flipping contest for the youth and Cooper Johnson won third overall and won a $500 scholarship and an Academy gift card.
The club’s two teams who competed were Lane Smith/Colt Henry with boat captain Jimmy Smith. The team placed 63rd with a total of 16.22 pounds. The second team of Cooper Johnson/Corbyn Patton and boat captain Jayson Toerck placed 169th with a total weight of 2.29 pounds.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.
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