Imagine a line of nearly 200 youthful archers all releasing their arrows toward downrange targets at the same time. In 12 minutes, those archers will shoot a total of 6,000 arrows in one of three flights that will comprise the 2019 annual Nevada National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) State Tournament.

By the time all flights are complete, 638 competitors representing 31 schools from around the Silver State will have shot more than 18,000 arrows, all in just 36 minutes.

Sponsored by the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), the tournament will take place Wednesday in the Priefort Pavilion at the South Point Hotel Casino. Shooting gets underway at 9 a.m. and should wrap up around 1 p.m. with awards to follow.

Teams and individual students who shoot a qualifying score can move on to the US Western National Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah where they can compete for scholarship money. That event will take place in late April.

“Archery is a great sport for our youth because anyone can do it, and they can do it at their own pace. You don’t have to be the fastest, strongest, or the most athletic to be a successful archer,” said Holly Brisendine, Archery Education program coordinator for NDOW. “NASP has a fully standardized program that focuses on safety and fairness across the board.”

Students in grades 4 through 12 can participate in NASP and compete in the tournament. Though an archer from high school might shoot next to one from middle school, the students compete against archers within their own age group – elementary, middle or high school – and they all use the same bow and arrows to maintain a level playing field.

Though not an official part of The Vegas Shoot, which is considered to be the world’s largest indoor archery tournament and begins Feb. 8, organizers of that event provide the space and targets used by students during the NASP Tournament.

Currently, there are 136 active NASP schools in Nevada and 89 (65.4%) of those are in Clark County. In 2018, 74 of the participating schools reported that a total of 12,656 students participated in NASP programs that year. Of those, 10,548 attended Clark County Schools. Had the remaining schools provided participation data, those numbers would have been much higher.