NATCHEZ — A Mississippi State University student from Natchez won first place in a collegiate indoor archery championship event on Feb. 15 in Hattiesburg.

Clare Meng, a sophomore at MSU, won first place in the Female Collegiate Bow Hunter Division at the 2020 Mississippi State Indoor Championships.

“I was very proud of myself and I wasn’t expecting to finish in first place,” Meng said.

Before Meng began shooting for the Archery Dawgs, Meng said she saw an advertisement for the archery team on campus.

“I decided to join and anybody can join the club,” Meng said. “If you want to compete, then you have to want to be able to compete. It’s pretty easy to compete for Mississippi State.”

In her first semester, Meng said she shot competitively for the first time. She said the first semester was a lot of fun with the archery team.

During the first semester, Meng and three other women on the Archery Dawgs competed at the 2019 U.S. National 3D Collegiate Championships on Oct. 4-6 in Foley, Alabama, where Meng finished 58th out of 65 in the Bowhunter Women Division. Meng said she wasn’t too proud of the placement.

Meng said she has bow hunted for eight years. She began shooting at the age of 11 and first began shooting at a hunting camp called Rifle Point in Ferriday.

“Since bow hunting has been part of my life for many years, I have continued to keep doing it by shooting in college,” Meng said.

This past weekend, the MSU Archery Dawgs competed at the 51st USA Archery National Indoor Championships in Suwanee, Georgia. That was Meng’s first indoor national championship. Meng said she was nervous and excited to shoot at the championship.