Archers take aim at state

The New Rockford Sheyenne archery team received a lively send off from their classmates and teachers on Friday, March 22 as they departed for the state archery competition in Minot. This in the third year that NR-S has participated in the National Archery School Program (NASP), and for many students it is their third year attending the state tournament.

Since January, the students have been practicing and developing their skills and have competed at school tournaments at Medina, Pingree-Buchanan, Wilton, Wolford and more. Unlike many team sports where the process of getting to state includes elimination tournaments, the NASP state tournament is open to all archery students, lending itself to a great display of abilities and skills.

Archery Coach Jamie Risovi says, “Sometimes we shoot well... sometimes we don’t. But what is so amazing is the kids really care about their teammates and are always there to bring each other up when they need it. And throughout the season, the overall improvements are amazing!”

“Our older archers help the younger ones out and set a great example for them to follow. Our main goal is always to represent our school and towns first and to strive to shoot at least one point better than their personal best. They’ve done a wonderful job of those goals again this year.”

At the state tournament this year, 24 Rocket archers shot their personal best scores: Eli Alfstad, Aaden Benson, Jackson Brazil, Hallie Brown, Logan Cudworth, Addysen Fandrich, Hunter Genre, Rikka Gudmunson, Bailey Jacobson, Layton Jacobson, Paige Knatterud, Lucas Laducer, Jocee Lawrence, DJ Mudgett, Abigail Nystrom, Kolton O’Connor, Ashton Reimche, Mathew Schuster, Christopher Wiedrich, Alex Weisenburger, Kaci Weisenburger, Chaztin Wobbema, Macey Wobbema and Lance Ziegler.

The fact that students can track and consistently pursue their personal best score gives them a great target to aim for at each tournament and offers a sense of accomplishment as they develop their skills.

As individuals at the state tournament, students have the opportunity to participate in two flights: one in the traditional bullseye competition and the other in the 3D target competition. In each flight, they shoot six ends of five arrows and record their scores with a student from another team. Their scores are then ranked in categories based on their grade and gender: Boys and girls high school (grades 9-12), boys and girls middle school (grades 6-8), and boys and girls elementary (grades 4-5).

Many of this year’s sixth graders found that placing was much more difficult, as the middle school category for grades 6-8 is much more competitive in both number in talent. Many of these students were at the top of their category last year, and while they shot their personal best this year did not place. “It pushes me to try harder and get better for next year,” says sixth grader Jackson Brazil who shot a personal best of 255. “Now I need to convince my parents to help me buy a bow so I can practice more.”

NR-S had a number of students place in the top ten of their category.

Six individual archers qualified to compete at the NASP Western National Tournament to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah on April 26-27. They are Hunter Genre, Alex Weisenburger, Kyria Dockter, Logan Cudworth, Hallie Brown and Koven Walford.

The elementary team came home with the third place team trophy and individual medals for each member. To determine team placings, the top 12 scores among the members are recorded and then added up to create a team score. The first place team in each division- elementary, middle and high school- have the honor of representing North Dakota at the national tournament. The third place team members from NR-S were Alex Weisenburger, Shaun Reimche, Logan Cudworth, Kolton O’Connor, Layton Jacobson, Kaci Weisenburger, Aaden Benson, Eli Alfstad, Chaztin Wobbema, Rikka Gudmunson, Lance Ziegler, Paige Knatterud, Alivia Yri, Bailey Baumbach, Ava Peterson, Jocee Lawrence, Christopher Wiedrich, Emmie Belquist, Jessica Rodriguez and Olivia Larson.

Coach Risovi is definitely proud of his elementary archers in light of this accomplishment. He said, “At the beginning of the season some of the new archers just try to keep their arrow on the rest while drawing their bow... and three months later they are the third place team in the state!!”

Six NR-S students competed in a shoot-out to be named to the 2019 North Dakota All-State Archery team: Keaton Cudworth, Kyria Dockter, Hunter Genre, Shaun Reimche, Koven Walford and Alex Weisenburger. This is similar to the All-State teams named for other sports such as basketball and football. However, in order to qualify an archer needs to shoot a minimum score in at least one regular season tournament. For elementary, the minimum was 250; for middle school 270 and high school 275. The qualifying students then compete in a shoot-out where archers shoot five arrows at 15 meters. The 12 students in each division with the highest scores on those five arrows are named to the All-State Team. This year several students in each division had to shoot a tie-breaker arrow, as they all had the same score on the first five arrows.

NR-S archers named to the All-State Team were Alex Weisenburger, elementary team; and Kyria Dockter and Hunter Genre, middle school team.