A Blair Oaks High School archer a little more than a week ago took a shot at being the best in the world, and she succeeded with near perfection.
Rising junior Kamryn Twehus shot a score of 299 out of a possible 300 on the 10/15 meter range the weekend of June 7-9 at the National Archery in the Schools Program World Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky.
Twehus placed at state, nationals and worlds last year as a rising sophomore at the end of her first year on Blair Oaks' archery team.
Last year at worlds, she placed fifth out of 467 high school girls, first out out 148 freshmen girls and eighth among 1,653 girls overall.
This time around, she was No. 1 overall, out of 2,362 girls. She was also first among 861 high school girls and first out of 251 sophomore girls.
"I'm just going to keep striving and try to get that 300," Twehus said Monday of what's next for her after winning at worlds, but just one point shy of perfection.
"No, I have not seen too many pick it up as fast as she did," Twehus' coach Doug Stockman said Monday.
"I'm hoping (Twehus) wins state and nationals next year," Stockman said.
Blair Oaks is entering the third year it's had an archery team, under the coaching of Stockman, his wife and four others.
"I'm hoping we actually get a team that can finish in the top five at state and nationals next year," Doug said in terms of what he hopes the team can accomplish next, and he anticipated having a good team next year.
Twehus said last year after worlds that her goals for the coming year would be "just to keep improving, maintain my technique and work on getting better every day," and she said Monday that she would stick with that strategy again.
She said she has not yet thought about whether to compete in college, or perhaps even at a Summer Olympics.
Students from Trinity Lutheran School also competed on the 10/15 meter range at worlds.
Blair Oaks and Trinity Lutheran students also competed the same weekend in Louisville at the NASP World IBO 3-D Challenge. Instead of the bull's-eyes on the 10/15 meter range, 3-D archery features targets molded onto the sides of foam models of game animals like deer, turkeys and bighorn sheep.
Another Missouri student, a boy from Hillsboro High School took second at worlds behind Twehus, according to a news release from the Missouri Department of Conservation.
One hundred twenty-nine Missouri students were among the more than 5,000 archers in fourth through 12th grades from more than 200 schools in two countries that competed.
Full results from both worlds tournaments are available at nasptournaments.org/TournamentExplorer.aspx.