Last Saturday, the Mustang Archers competed in their final regular season tournament in Anamosa. The Machart 300 Bullseye and 3D tournament gave our elementary, middle school, and high school teams one final chance to build momentum heading into the State Tournament March 4-5 in Des Moines. Our elementary team had their best tournament of the season and finished in first place. Both our middle school and high school teams finished in fourth place. In the 3D tournament, the middle school team finished in fifth place and our high school team place sixth.
For the elementary bullseye team, the Mustang archers had five archers earn medals. Kenlyn Grenis led the elementary girls with a sixth-place finish. Grant Vaughn finished in first place, Elliot Micheel placed second, Finn Plattner earned fifth, and Blake Miller finished in sixth for the elementary boys. Nathan Nederhiser led the middle school boys with a 277 and a fifth-place finish. Lainey Kelly ended in fourth place for the high school girls while Walker Bilden also placed fourth.
Next up for the Mount Vernon Mustang Archery team is a trip to Des Moines to compete in the 2023 Iowa Bullseye/3D State Tournament. Throughout the season the archers had the opportunity to compete as a team as well as qualifying individually for the State Tournament. To qualify for state, the top two team scores were used to hit a minimum score set before the season. Individually, each archer had a minimum score to hit using their best two tournament scores.
This year, all Mustang archery teams in both bullseye and 3D qualified for state. From there, State teams were selected based on tournament performance, tournament attendance, and practice attendance. Each team can field 20 archers for bullseye and 12 for 3D. As you can imagine, this is the most difficult process as all our archers did amazing this year and really impressed our coaches as well as everyone who watched them grow and get better each week. With that being said, below is the state teams’ roster for those participating in Des Moines on March 4 and 5.
State elementary bullseye team (fourth-fifth grades) – Cody Bock, Corbyn Clark, Natalie Ford, Kenlyn Grenis, Hayden Hedges, Charlynn Holtz, Kellen Johanningmeier, Milo Jones, Rod Mercer, Elliott Micheel, Blake Miller, Jack Morgan, Paxten Pisarik, Finn Plattner, Laine Pospisil, Anders Rasmussen, Becker Reinken, Will Ripke, Charlie Studt and Grant Vaughn.
State Elementary 3D (Individual, No Team) – Finn Plattner
Middle School Bullseye (sixth-eighth grades) – Trulie Breidinger, Collin Clark, Calvin Crawford, Danny Dye, Brinson Grenis, Weston Haskell, Landon Johanningmeier, Piper Kaiser, Mallie Lange, Ryker Lee, Izaak Leonard, Miles Locke, Paul Morris, Nathan Nederhiser, Serenity Robards, Jake Shady, Gunner Steinberg, Hutson Wiesenhofer, Hagen Wilkins and Lillian Wood.
State Middle School 3D Team – Trulie Breidinger, Grey Denes, Brinson Grenis, Weston Haskell, Chris Jones, Piper Kaiser, Ryker Lee, Serenity Robards, Jake Shady, Gunner Steinberg, Charlie Stewart, Hutson Wiesenhofer.
High School Bullseye State Team – Walker Bilden, Jacob Cannon, Marin Denes, Sarah Fluharty, Ean Grudzinski, Levi Hanna, Marquez Ireland, Lainey Kelly, Aleece Lee, Jaks Lee, Gabriel Mahoney, Austin Mercer, Amy Morris, Natalie Nederhiser, Jayce Pendergrass, Cayden Scheil, Ian Shady, Wyatt Smith, Sierra Snyder and Jaelynn Williams.
State High School 3D Team – Jacob Cannon, Sarah Fluharty, Erin Gaffney, Lainey Kelly, Austin Mercer, Amy Morris, Ian Shady, Sierra Snyder and Jaelynn Williams.
The Mount Vernon Elementary Archery team for 2023.