Now in its second year, the Becker Bulldogs archery team began practicing for their season just this week. Participation numbers have increased from 84 archers in their inaugural season to 116 archers from 4th-12th grade this year.

“The popularity of the sport is increasing at a rapid pace here in Becker,” said Program Director Scott Brake. 

Mike Lombard shares coaching director responsibilities with Brake, and there are a number of assistant coaches helping out with the large number of athletes; Dean Andersen, Deb Andersen, Brett Baldry, Jason Pink, Jeff Folsom, Josh Severson, Matt Hook, Dustin Norton, Ole Nettestad, Brandon Frommelt, Dustin Trautner, Robert Ahner, Dan Kasper, Al Scherping, Dave Braun, Laurie Pearson, Tanya Jergensen, Britt Scheerle, Wayne Scheerle, Jorge Zubia, Jenny Miller and Bill Towle. 

Team members each have two 50-minute practices per week, which the coaches offer Monday-Friday in varying time slots from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Our strength will be the valuable experience our archers gained from their first season,” said Brake. “The teams improved their team scores at all levels throughout last season, culminating at the state tournament.”

The archery team is made up of the 4th-5th grade team, the 6th-8th grade team, and the 9th-12th grade team.

“The coaches can definitely see the drastic improvement from the start of last season to the start of this season,” Brake continued. “We are much further along going into the 2020 tournament season.”

Brake expects the team’s weakness will be its overall inexperience as a program.

“That’s to be expected as we continue to grow the program,” he said. “We fully expect our archers to continue the steep curve of improvement as we enter the upcoming season.”

The Bulldog archers will be competing at a number of tournaments this year, including Chisago Lakes, New Prague, Princeton, Milaca, St. Paul, Becker, Stillwater and the State Tournament at Foley.

“We expect to improve quickly as we move through the 2020 tournament season,” said Brake. “The coaches are so excited to witness the drastic improvements and steady successes of our student archers. It’s so much fun to experience this with the students and their parents.

This year’s archery team boasts a good mix of high school students, and there are many up and coming archers that are improving quickly.

The team’s second-year senior leaders are James Braun, Trevor Lane and Hunter Nygren. First-year member Tina Gruber will also add to the team’s senior leadership. Along with the seniors, freshmen Ryland Beutz and Aubrie Pennie are experienced archers who joined the Bulldogs this year after shooting at Foley for a number of years before Becker introduced the sport.

“We will rely on these archers to help lead our team through their example, experience and success,” said Brake.

First up for the Bulldog archers is the Chisago Lakes Tournament in January.