Archers heading to nationals

After performing well enough at the state tournament held at the beginning of March, five individuals and two teams from Nodaway Valley and Orient-Macksburg’s archery teams are going this week to the national tournament.

The National Archery in the Schools national tournament the Wolverines and Bulldogs are competing in is May 8-10 in Louisville, Kentucky. This is another in a run of several years that the area has produced national qualifiers in archery.

Nodaway Valley archers competing are Beau Antisdel, Ashby Melton and Tyson Hauf. Orient-Macksburg has Myka Hanscom and Justin Conner who have qualified individually while their bullseye and 3D teams each qualified as groups.

NV qualifies three

Head coach Bill Newbury said qualifying the three the Wolverines did for nationals from a solid performance at state begins to put a nice finishing touch on the season for a program that has been strong for many years.

An eighth grader, Antisdel scored a 285 of 300 — fourth out of all middle school boys and fourth among eighth grade boys — to qualify for nationals while another eighth grader, Hauf, had the same ranking and the same score. Antisdel and Hauf are first cousins. They had to go to a shoot-off to determine who would take which placing.

Antisdel has qualified for nationals before, but never in bullseye.

“My fifth grade year, when I made it individually before, I qualified in 3D, so I’m shooting something new individually [at nationals],” Antisdel said. “At the beginning of the year I started shooting OK. I had a really big slump going down. I fixed my release of how I let go of my arrow, and about the end of the year I started on a high again and that high carried me through to state.”

Hauf has also qualified for nationals before, but never individually. From his first trip to nationals as a member of a team, he remembers how important it is to take a good mindset with you to a stage like that.

“If you don’t go into it with a good mindset it will throw you off,” Hauf said. “You just have to treat it like a normal tournament. My first reaction going into this is that it’s a lot different because they have a lot more targets, but you just have to have a good mindset about it.”

Melton takes her bullseye and 3D shooting to nationals, having finished third out of 127 elementary girls at state and third among fifth grade girls with a 267 in bullseye and second among elementary girls and fifth grade girls in 3D, shooting a 262.

Melton said it takes a lot of focus to be successful in archery — especially in 3D, where the archer does not remain stationary.

“I’ve not been to nationals before. I’m both scared and excited. I’m going to try to treat it just like a normal tournament. Otherwise you’ll get kind of freaked out and you won’t shoot as good,” Melton said. “I’m excited to have teammates going with me.”

NV head coach Bill Newbury said archery is as much mental as it is physical.

“Nationals is for the kids who do exceptionally well and have earned their spot,” Newbury said. “Hopefully they go down there, have fun and do the best they can.”

Bulldogs embrace their last ride

While nearly everything Orient-Macksburg embarks on this year carries a bittersweet tone due to the school eventually closing, the Bulldog archers have carried a lot of pride for the fact that they are so successful despite their very low enrollment.

As a team, they have to meet high school score standards to qualify for state and nationals, and they were able to do that in bullseye and 3D.

On the individual side, Hanscom scored a 278 in bullseye at state — sixth-best among eighth grade girls and ninth-best among middle school girls. Hanscom is a returning nationals qualifier.

“The season’s been pretty rough this year. It wasn’t my best,” Hanscom said. “Things got a lot better when I didn’t let my emotions get to me. State wasn’t really my best this year, but I still made it to nationals. Having been to nationals before, I learned to not let other people get in my head [to distract me]. I’m super excited.”

Conner scored a 272 in bullseye to finish fourth among elementary boys and was fourth of fifth grade boys. He was fifth of 3D elementary boys and fifth grade boys, scoring a 268 in that competition.

“My season went OK. I started out kind of low but then built up. My coaches helped me out a lot,” Conner said. “At first, I was excited [to make nationals], but that meant more practice. I just need to not get nervous and to stay positive and relaxed.”

O-M co-head coach Jeff Hanscom said the Bulldogs “keep going up” every year they compete. Though it is the last year, he’s excited to see how his archers finish this season and how well they do for whichever team they shoot for next season.

“For us being a small school, I’m just happy they buckled down and did the best they could. We ended up getting a team in 3D and bullseye with our two individuals,” the coach said. “This is going to be bittersweet. There’s already been a lot of tears. It is going to suck, pretty much, but most of our kids will end up at Nodaway Valley, with a few going to East Union or Creston. They all know Bill and he’ll be there to help out. I think most of our coaches want to go help over there, so it will be good.”