Move over Robin Hood, there’s a new hot shot archer in town, and her name is Stephanie Correa.
Correa championed the first-ever Santa Ynez Valley Bow Club Traditional Challenge on Aug. 9, where she battled out against nine other participants on a 16-target course.
What’s impressive about Correa’s performance is that she has only been involved with archery for two years. After a back injury she sustained from playing soccer, she needed to find another sport to immerse herself in.
She picked archery as that sport and took it on full bore.
“I’ve always been interested in archery,” Correa said. “I went online, did some researching, and I picked up some equipment over at Farm Supply in Arroyo Grande.”
In the Aug. 9 tournament—long bow with finger-release only and no sights allowed—Correa accumulated a score of 392. The second-place contestant scored 211 points.
What boosted Correa’s score so much was that she landed two tricky shots. One was a target of an apple on top of a man’s head (not a real man), which was shot from a distance of 25 yards. The other was a 10-by-10-inch target that had to be shot from 90 yards. Correa was the only one in the tournament to hit the targets. That combination of trick shots added 120 points to her final score, which secured her win.
Correa obtained those shots with the help of her competitive drive and the fact that she practices five to seven times a week at the archery range.
“I practice as much as I can. Archery is kinda my job right now,” Correa said. “I’m a little competitive. But it’s because I’m not content at being good. I want to be the best. I want to beat the boys.”
And that’s exactly what she did. Correa was the only woman who participated in the challenge.
This article appears in Aug 14-21, 2014.