Archery teams from three area school districts are heading to different locations to compete in national tournaments.
Archers from Chandler and McLoud are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah this weekend to compete in the Nationals there.
A couple of weeks later, North Rock Creek and Chandler will send students to Louisville, Ky., for the nationals in that city.
Chandler’s Archery Coach Ty Rhoades is taking Kyzer Guthrie, senior, and Lexi Martzall to compete in the Western NASP National Tournament in Salt Lake City this Saturday, April 30.
An eighth grader and reigning world champion Caden Eyestone is heading with his parents, Jeremy and Valerie Eyestone, to the Eastern NASP National Tournament in Louisville, Ky., to compete May 14.
Caden will compete in both Bullseye and IBO 3-D, Rhoades explained.
Rhoades, who is the secondary Special Education teacher, has been at Chandler since 2004 and this is his final year as archery coach, he said.
He noted he will continue for another year as secondary Special Ed teacher.
In addition to coaching archery, he is also Outdoor Skills and Trap shooting coach.
He said Susan Morton, who has been an assistant, is retiring to move closer to her grandchildren in Ohio.
“We got the archery program going in 2006, but 2007 was our first year to compete,” Rhoades said.
“We’re taking fewer people to Nationals this year because we had fewer qualify. Normally, I would take a team,” he added.
“I have 107-108 students in archery normally, but only 72 this year, and that includes elementary, middle school and high school.
“We share kids with other sports and that’s just how it turns out. We’ve won several state and national championships and one world title, mainly individual titles,” Rhoades stated.
North Rock Creek Archery Coach J.R. Rogers said 36 students are going to the Eastern NASP National Tournament in Louisville, Ky., next month.
“The high school team will compete May 12 and the middle school team and the one elementary student compete May 13,” he said.
Rogers said, “They qualified by shooting at the OKNASP Grand State in February. The middle school finished seventh overall and high school placed 12th overall,” he noted.
“That qualified us to be in the national tournament.
“We have 18 going from the middle school, 17 high schoolers and the one from elementary,” he said.
Rogers pointed out, “We competed in four tournaments. We hosted two of them, traveled to Chandler for one and to McLoud for another.
The high school team was first at one of the home tourneys and fifth in the other, finished sixth at Chandler and fourth at McLoud, he said.
The middle school was second and third at the tournaments played at home, fifth at Chandler and second at McLoud, Rogers said.
The elementary student was second as an individual at one of the home tourneys, 15th at the other. She came in 10th at Chandler and first at McLoud.
“At the state tournament, she came in first in her region. She is just a fifth grader,” Rogers stressed.
Rogers explained, “We started archery here in 2013. Mike Lewis, one of our other coaches, and Supt. Blake Moody began it as a fifth grade Physical Education class and it slowly grew into what it is today.
“I’ve been involved with it for about eight years,” the head archery coach said.
Archery has become huge in schools throughout Oklahoma. Rogers said according to the state director Kelly Boyer, there are around 670 NASP programs throughout the state.
“Our total number of students has been about 90. We had to whittle down during the year to get to where 18 on each team could compete at the state and national level,” Rogers said.
McLoud’s Brandi Steed is health teacher at the high school and head archery coach for the high school, middle school and elementary school. Steed has 76 archery students from the fourth grade through the 12th, she said.
“My whole high school team is competing at Salt Lake City. We have 18 students competing on Saturday, April 30,” Steed stated.
She related, “We’ve won a couple of tournaments and placed second at the high school level. We had a really great season,” Steed believes.
“We’re not taking anyone from the elementary or middle school this year,” Steed added.
The high schoolers shoot two different types of bows, she explained. One is more of a traditional hunting bow, the other she describes as a “Genesis Original–a bow with ope sights.”
Steed pointed out, “We placed second at the Grand State at the high school level with the NASP and we were third in state with varsity archery.”
She thinks, “We have a very talented group of students this year.”
Steed said, “I’ve been at McLoud for 11 years. I began the program seven years ago at the Junior High l and have built the program since that time.”
She concluded, saying, “I’m just looking forward to watching my students compete at the national tournament and represent McLoud and the state of Oklahoma.”