Jessa Heatherington and Will Roberts of William E. Hay Stettler Secondary Campus have been invited to join Team Canada as they prepare to participate in the 2016 All Star Championship in South Africa later this year in July.
"It's exciting to be invited to All Stars twice now and I feel proud and honoured to represent my country, but honestly, it makes me nervous because I have to keep up with the rest of my team and if I do poorly at a tournament, then I feel like I have become a bad representative for my country," said Jessa Heatherington. "After last year's Worlds and All Stars, I have definitely gone to tournaments with a bit more confidence, though."
With about four months to go for the competition, training for the archers have become more rigorous.
"Since All Stars and since school started again, I have had practice at least once a week, but now because it's competition season, I have practice four times a week," added Heatherington. "Personally, I need to work on not stressing over a bad round and I need to pay better attention to what my elbow is doing."
Heatherington's tournament scores have gone up in the past year.
"I shot an average of 275 at All Stars last year, and those scores were good, but with the experience I have gained and the hours I have practiced my average scores have gone up to 285, which is a large improvement in eight months," said Heatherington.
With Will Roberts being also invited for a second time this year, Team Canada will have two Stettler students on the roster.
"It feels good to be invited twice in a row and really makes all the practice time worth it especially after being a part of it last year as well," said Will Roberts. "I feel like I've been constantly improving since last year, after being exposed to all those other teams and their methods of shooting."
Roberts is aware of some of the weaknesses he needs to focus on.
"As far as areas I need to work on, focus is by far the one that needs the most work, but I'll have time to work on that in our practices on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays," said Roberts.
As archers from Stettler, Castor, Sedgewick and Smoky Lake descended upon the Gus Wetter School in Castor to participate in the second annual Castor NASP Pre-Nationals on Saturday, Feb. 27, Stettler made its mark from among the 171 participants.
Stettler top scorers were Jessa Heatherington of Grade 11 scoring 291 in the girls, Brooke Glasier of Grade 9 scoring 279 in the girls, and Colby Barclay of Grade 9 scoring 252 in the boys.