Jason Cleave, left to right, Meaghan Cleave, Hailey Cleave and Karlie Cleave at the 2014 Canadian Indoor 3D Championship in Lethbridge. (submitted photo)

The Cleave family packed up for the summer and hit the road to archery tournaments around the country.

It was a very successful summer for the local family as they came back with 25 medals in total from four national and two provincial tournaments around the prairies.

“Early in the year, we started looking into what it would take to go to all the national events and saw that they were all within driving distance, this year only,” said Jason Cleave, father of Meaghan and Hailey Cleave, who 13 of the family’s medals.

The busy summer started in Lethbridge at the 2014 Canadian Indoor 3D Championships where Jason came back with a gold, Meaghan and Karlie with silver and Hailey with bronze in their respective age groups.

Next up was the regional indoor championships and three more medals as Jason and Meaghan took silvers and Hailey won another bronze.

Back-to-back weekends in July saw the family at the Provincial Outdoor 3D Championship in Moosomin, followed by the Provincial Fita Championship and then the field provincials.

The Outdoor 3D Provincials was the most successful showing for the Cleave family as all four family members came away with gold medals.  They almost repeated the feat at the Outdoor Field Provincials with Jason, Karlie and Meaghan winning gold and Hailey taking silver.

The Cleaves finished their run at the Canadian National Archery Championships in Lac La Biche, Alberta.  

“There was over 580 registered entrants in Lac La Biche,” said Jason Cleave.  “They’ve never had that kind of turnout in any national event before.”

The event was another successful one for the Cleaves, as they came away with six medals.  Hailey Cleave just missed the podium, finishing in fourth place in both the 3D and Field championships.

“Hailey had some trouble, but she’s at young end of that age group,” said Jason.  “The three ahead of her, two of them were destined for the Olympics.”

Jason was impressed with the progress that both his daughters showed throughout the year, but he said the whole summer was about having fun.

“We want to maintain it being fun, but if the kids keep excelling, we’ll keep travelling,” said Cleave.

He doesn’t expect next year to be quite as busy.  “At Lac La Biche, it was two weeks straight of archery every day, so they’re a little tired of it right now, but I can’t see it taking more than a week or two and they’ll want to be right back at it,” said Cleave.

“It’s all about the experience and both kids are happy they did it.”