The Trinity Lutheran School archery program brought home several individual and team placements from the National Archery in the Schools Program Championship on July 25-27 in Nashville.
Fifth-grader Sydney King took second place in the elementary school girls division with a score of 288 in the bull’s-eye competition.
Also in bull’s-eye, Trinity Lutheran placed 13th out of 45 teams, one of their highest placements to date in the five years of the program, coach Jake Hunget said.
The students also did well in the 3-D competition, where archers shoot at life-sized animal targets instead of bull’s-eyes. King placed second in the elementary school girls division, fifth-grader Luke Angerer placed seventh in the elementary school boys division, and the Trinity Lutheran Middle School team placed fourth in the middle school team division.
“I can’t say enough good things about this,” Hunget said. “This is kind of the elite. It’s a heavy competition. I’m just really proud of the kids and the work that they put in.”
Along with a plaque, King left the competition with a new bow she won in a raffle, which she said was her favorite part of attending.
Although she started doing archery just six months ago, King took home two second-place awards, along with other placements from previous qualifying tournaments.
“(The plaque) is already hung up in our dining room,” King said.
King’s mother, Nicole Porter, said the whole family went to support King and watch her win the award.
“It was so exciting,” Porter said. “It’s been a great season. She said she wanted to start archery, and we kind of thought it would last about two weeks, and she was a natural at it, so it’s been a really exciting season.”
King plans to continue in the archery program, and Porter said they’re already looking at places to stay for next year’s Championship in Daytona Beach, in the hopes King has another good season.
Porter had praise for the program as a whole.
“The team has been great, and they really did good as a whole,” Porter said. “They’re just really great teammates and support each other, and the coaches have been great.”
Trinity Lutheran’s archery program includes students from fourth through eighth grades and has been around for five years. When they started, Hunget said they had about 24 students. This year they had more than 70.
The archery season started in November, and the children have been working hard to practice and compete during their long season.
“You’ve got to be motivated to come to practice. You’ve got to want to be there,” Hunget said. “They did everything we asked them to do. They prepared and gave it their best effort.”
The archers who competed in the NASP Championship first had to qualify through state level and national level competitions. At nationals in May, which were in Louisville, Kentucky, King took first place in the 3-D competition for elementary girls, and the elementary team placed 16th out of 77 teams.
At the MoNASP State Tournament in March, Trinity Lutheran’s elementary team took second place in bull’s-eye and first place in the 3-D tournament, and several students placed in both categories, including King and Angerer.