WXXV Student Athlete of the Week: D’Iberville Archery’s Julia Pryor
For the first time ever on our student athlete segment, we are featuring the great sport of archery!
Julia Pryor is the top female shooter in South Mississippi and is one of the top three female shooters in the state. That’s one of the many reasons why she’s our WXXV Student Athlete of the Week.
When it comes to a bow and arrow, Julia Pryor knows exactly what she’s doing. Pryor decided to try out for the archery team because her dad recently bought her a new bow and arrow and she wanted to see what it was all about.
As she continued to practice, she fell in love with the sport because it was all about physicality and mental toughness. “You have to have like a really strong mental state because it’s mind over matter, so you have to really stay focused. You can’t let little things make you upset because if you get upset you can’t focus, so that’s a big thing, mental.”
After picking up the sport just four years ago, Pryor’s resume is nothing short of incredible.
Just last year, Pryor was the Cougar Classic Top Female, a Mississippi Aims All Star, a State Games silver medalist, and the Division 3A state champion. Pryor owes a lot of her success to her support team. “There’s a lot of support that comes from the team because everyone wants to work together and do the best they can, and then parents always keeping you mentally stable, telling you that you can do it, and then your coaches are always there to let you know what you’re doing wrong, what you’re doing right, and pipe you up.”
Head Coach David Barber has been coaching her since her sophomore year and he says she truly inspires him and her teammates. “I wasn’t really expecting to meet someone with this type of character and someone that actually loved the sport as much as she did. The overall focus that she has toward it and her attitude toward her team is what really makes her stand out different than a lot of other archers, and she really does serve us well not only by scoring a lot of points, but she also is a capable team leader, and she leads by example every day.”
Not only does Pryor hit the target when it comes to archery, but she also excels in the classroom and contributes a lot of her time to her community.
Pryor is in the top 25 of her senior class with a 4.075 GPA, is a member of the D’Iberville Hall of Fame, and the Harrison County Career Tech Hall of Fame and she is involved in numerous clubs and organizations. “It makes me feel excited because it shows that all my hard work in high school is paying off, and I get to do great things after it too because of keeping good grades and also doing great in the sport that I like to do.”
Pryor and the rest of the Warriors will compete for the state championship in Jackson on April 17th. She has high hopes that D’Iberville will come back home with back-to-back titles. “I want a 300 because that’s the highest you can score, but my goal is for the team to win state with a 3,400, that’s our goal, and we’re hoping to win state championships for the second year, and then I also do want to try to get top shooter overall.”
Although Julia’s job as a Warrior isn’t complete just yet, she plans on continuing her archery career at William Carey University.
