The East Elementary School Archery Team has won first place in the 2018 NASP Eastern National IBO 3D Challenge. (Courtesy of East Elementary)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A handful of local archery squads made their way to Louisville, Kentucky over the weekend for the 2018 National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) national tournaments, and one of them even brought home a national title. East Elementary took the top the prize in this year’s International Bowhunting Organization (IBO) shoot, finishing with a score of 1,660. East also managed to take home second place in the bullseye event.
East Elementary Coach Branch Whitlock knew after watching his team shoot that they had a chance to win it all, but he didn’t realize how well they really performed until after all the results were in.
“We shot the ministry event the night before and had a real strong score, so I thought that if we shot that score again the next day, we would probably win. We turned around and we shot a better score. Our score was 20 points higher than the national champion from the year before, so I felt really good about it. I felt like we were in a great place moving forward and had a great opportunity to win,” Whitlock said. “I thought that we had it won, I really felt good about it. 1660 is the score that won and that’s an unprecedented score, that’s a middle school score and we shot it, so I knew I felt good about it, I was trying to encourage the parents not to go home and to wait and see and most of them did. The kids were so excited, probably the first national championship for an Elementary School here in Cullman. We also felt great about our bullseye score except for the fact that on Friday, Kingston Elementary out of Louisiana shot a score that I thought might be untouchable, kind of like our IBO score. If we had like an incredible day we could’ve beaten them, and we just barely came up short. We would’ve beaten last year’s champion by two points, so that’s how good we shot this year.”
Whitlock said he knew by the end of the year that he had a special team but back at the start of the season, he had a lot of questions about his 2018 squad.
“I thought this year was going to be a struggle for us. I thought coming into the year we were probably second in the state. We had some good returners but not as many as I normally have. I really had to bring on some new fifth graders and develop them along the way and of course every year we have new fourth graders but about middle of the year, around March, I realized how much potential this team had. I thought at that time it was probably the group with the most potential that I’ve ever had so I got really excited that we could potentially have a national championship team,” Whitlock said. “I wasn’t sure we would be good enough by state to win state, but I did think we’d be good by the time nationals rolled around. We made a huge jump right before state and an even bigger one right after. We shot 19 points higher at nationals than we did at state. In turn, Dixon Elementary, the team I was most worried about, shot about 80 points lower than they did at state so that’s how things can take a turn. It’s just the mental makeup of the kids that makes or breaks it sometimes. The kids shot out of their mind good. It’s a lot of stress and pressure and they were just able to fight through it and bring it home.”
Cullman Middle School finished sixth overall in the IBO shoot after posting a 1,670, Vinemont Middle School placed 24th with a score of 1637 and West Point High School posted a 1,370 to finish 96th. East Elementary also came up with a second-place finish in the bullseye event after posting a score of 3,260. Vinemont Middle School and Cullman Middle School finished 28th and 33rd in the bullseye event, respectively and West Point Middle School finished the event in 214th place nationally. West Point and Good Hope High Schools were the only local high schools in Louisville over the weekend and finishing in 98th and 157th place in the bullseye event, respectively.
Vinemont Elementary placed 28th in the IBO shoot and 21st in the bullseye event over the weekend, but the standout during the trip for the Eagles was fifth-grader Kayden Henderson. Henderson finished in third place in the bullseye event, finishing ahead of more than 2,000 other elementary archers with a score of 288.
Alongside Henderson, there were a few more standout performances in Louisville from local archers. East Elementary’s Allie Stewart took fourth place in the bullseye event with a final score of 283, Hayden Scott finished sixth for East in the IBO shoot with a score of 283, and East’s Ava Ray finished second in the IBO shoot with a score of 282 just ahead of Stewart, who finished third. East Elementary also had five girls finish in the top 10 of the Ministry 3D Tournament, starting with Arianna Scott. Scott finished second with 278 points just ahead of Allie Stewart and Ava Ray, who finished third and fourth, respectively. Brianna Willoughby also cracked the top 10 with a seventh-place finish just ahead of Lillyann Powell in eighth. East Elementary’s boys also had a big day in the 3D Ministry shoot. Hayden Scott took second place after posting a 282 and Evan Dockery was right behind him in fourth place. Jack Yeager put together a seventh-place finish in the shoot, with Cole Burnham rounding out East’s top 10 performers in ninth place.
Top six finishers for each time in each event. Top six individual scores count toward the team’s total.
National IBO 3D Challenge
East Elementary – 1st place
Fifth-grader Hayden Scott – 283 points
Fifth-grader Ava Ray – 282 points
Fifth-grader Allie Stewart – 282 points
Fifth-grader Jack Yeager – 274 points
Fifth-grader Arianna Scott – 270 points
Fifth-grader Briana Willoughby – 269 points
Vinemont Elementary – 28th place
Fifth-grader Kayden Henderson – 269 points
Fifth-grader Rylan McRae – 252 points
Fifth-grader Trinity Sartin – 250 points
Fifth-grader Lily Hasting – 249 points
Fifth-grader Nicolas Jankowski – 243 points
Fifth-grader Christian Hart – 243 points
Cullman Middle School – 6th place
Jackson Miner, 281 points
Will Bolzle, 281 points
Grader Jamie Jowers – 279 points
Carson Starnes – 279 points
Kilie Cosper – 277 points
Clay Bonds – 273 points
Vinemont Middle School – 24th place
Ayden Thomason – 280 points
Dawson Wilhite – 278 points
Tai Shurtleff – 272 points
Jarrett Friedrich – 271 points
Vance Powell – 271 points
Chayce Sandlin – 270 points
West Point High School – 96th place
Matthew Dunagan – 280 points
Ronnie Gentry – 270 points
Shay Sellers – 269 points
Leila Cherry – 239 points
Mackenzie Tidwell – 228 points
Gearl Ellenburg – 217 points
Nationals Bullseye Shoot (Top 12 scores are counted toward team totals)
East Elementary – 2nd place
Allie Stewart – 283 points
Jack Yeager – 280 points
Hayden Scott – 279 points
Briana Willoughby – 278 points
Ava Ray – 278 points
Evan Dockery – 276 points
Arianna Scott – 271 points
Cole Burnham – 269 points
Mack Dumas – 266 points
Tyler Brock – 261 points
Brinley Hurt – 260 points
Cooper Loftin – 259 points
Vinemont Elementary – 21st place
Kayden Henderson – 288 points
Hayden Robinson – 270 points
Lily Hasting – 267 points
Trinity Sartin – 265 points
Rylan McRae – 260 points
Jonathan Roland – 257 points
Tucker Robinson – 256 points
Lex Harbison – 251 points
Cheston Wilhite – 250 points
Erin Anderson – 250 points
Zachary Coates – 248 points
Nicolas Jankowski – 245 points
Vinemont Middle School – 28th place
Jarrett Friedrich – 284 points
Jordan Whitehead – 282 points
Logan Ford – 282 points
Savannah Mann – 278 points
Tai Shurtleff – 276 points
Dawson Wilhite – 275 points
Sydney Rutherford – 275 points
Caden Welch – 275 points
Ayden Thomason – 272 points
Alexis Sartin – 271 points
Ethan Monfort – 271 points
Vance Powell – 270 points
Cullman Middle School – 33rd place
Will Bolzle – 285 points
Roman Shields – 277 points
Jackson Henshaw – 277 points
Carson Starnes – 276 points
Jackson Miner – 276 points
Samantha Johnson – 273 points
Jamie Jowers – 273 points
Emma Ritchey – 272 points
Anna Page – 272 points
Clay Bonds – 272 points
Emma Britton – 271 points
Kilie Cosper – 270 points
West Point Middle School – 214th place
Carter Duke – 276 points
Lauren Taylor – 275 points
John David Cochran – 268 points
Summer Mendoza – 262 points
Kaitlynn Gable – 254 points
Tray Griffin – 252 points
Garrett Smith – 251 points
Ryleigh Jones – 249 points
Gracy Kelton – 248 points
Cade Tyree – 247 points
Marshall Doherty – 247 points
Hallie Wheeler – 245 points
West Point High School – 98th place
Matthew Dunagan – 288 points
Ethan Little – 285 points
Christian Parker – 280 points
Lily Owen – 280 points
Emma Tucker – 277 points
Blake Johnson – 274 points
Shay Sellers – 272 points
Sarah Hudson – 270 points
Cameron Haynes – 269 points
Skyler Rittenberry – 265 points
Ronnie Gentry – 264 points
Mallory Campbell – 263 points
Good Hope High School – 157th place
Mallory Hammock – 283 points
Connor Earp – 281 points
Will Dickerson – 274 points
Matthew Kraus – 273 points
RJ Bynum – 271 points
Taylor Wooten – 270 points
Landon Graham – 267 points
Abby Davis – 264 points
Riley Kilpatrick – 264 points
Bella Davis – 263 points
Bethany Bynum – 261 points
Jonathan Speegle – 254 points
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