Imagine any expansion team in professional sports taking a championship or even playing for it in their second year of existence. It is almost unimaginable.
Well in a sense, that is what the archery teams from Carbon School District did last weekend when they beat out the competition at the state meet for middle schools and elementary schools in Salt Lake City.
Archery as a competitive sport, only began in the Carbon schools two years ago. Once the shooting was all done at the meet, Castle Heights Elementary took first place in the elementary division and Mont Harmon Middle School took first in the middle school division.
And don’t forget that their sparing mates in the county also did well with Helper taking second place in the state and Sally Mauro Elementary taking sixth in the elementary division.
The winning was done in all kinds of ways, with both depth of team and star scorers included.
Davin Moss of Helper Middle School was the top shooter in the entire meet, including high school students who participated, with a score of 286.
Not to be outdone (by much) was Kacie Brady of Mont Harmon who was the top girls shooter in the tournament with a 270.
In addition, Castle Heights actually had enough students participate to send two teams with the second unit taking seventh place as well.
All the coaches, from Tom Lasslo and Phil Howa at Mont Harmon and Helper to Kyle Hansen and Sheila Manzanares from Castle Heights and Sally Mauro, were very pleased with their teams performances.
The top archer for Castle Heights was Kaden Donathan with a 251, but the championship amongst the grammar school students was decided by the depth of the Castle Heights team, many of them scoring high in every round. The school had four others in the top t10 including Rydge Butler, Dallin Humes, Paxton Falk and Evan Lancaster.
“We prepared them for the rounds by practicing in front of people and playing background noise while they were doing the meet with Sally Mauro this year,” said Chris Winfree, the Principal of Castle Heights. “Last year a lot of the kids were shocked by what it was like in competition with the noise and people next to them in the next lane shooting at the same time. This time they were prepared.”
The trophy for taking first place in the state will be presented to the Castle Heights team in a couple of weeks.
Sally Mauro’s top scorers were Hunter Pero with a 219 and Lily Carmichael who scored a 196.
Howa reminded his team the morning while team photos were being taken, that the difference between winning at nationals and at the state level is not that different since their teammate, Davin Moss, actually shot rounds that matched up with national scores that have been posted across the country this year.
It was a banner weekend for the schools from Carbon and the future looks bright. But there is still more coming. The teams qualified for the national meet, which last year was held in Kentucky so not all the students could go. This year that meet will be held in Sandy at the Southtown Center.
Virtually everyone who qualified will go to that meet on April 14.