Los Angeles and San Diego Go Neck and Neck in the All-School Competition
Forty archers faced each other, sizing up their competition. On one side were the archers of the legendary Fontana middle schools, Almeria, Sequoia, and Alder, the first teams of the OAS program along with their high school teammates from the powerhouses of Glendale and North Hollywood High. Their opponents for this showdown were the upstart archers from San Diego, including the new teams of Magnolia Science Academy, High Tech Chula Vista, Barona Charter, SD French American School, and veteran team John Muir. Although they had just joined the program recently, these teams busted out onto the archery scene during our San Diego Conference Championships and were eager to show the rest of California what they were made of.
Middle School: All-San Diego Team on the left, All-Los Angeles Team on the right
High School: All-San Diego Team on the left, All-Los Angeles Team on the right
This showdown between our Los Angeles and San Diego Conferences was a new event for this year to foster camaraderie within and between our OAS teams and regions. The competition was set during our 2013 California State Championships, held at the Cal State University of Long Beach. These All-Los Angeles and All-San Diego teams were formed the month before at their respective Conference Championships and consist of 10 archers (separate middle school and high school team), the top 2 boys and top 2 girls from the Olympic Round matches, and the top 2 team round teams from that tournament.
SEE RESULTS FROM THE ALL-SCHOOL COMPETITION (LAST PAGE)
The event started with the team round matches and from the start it was clear that it was going to be a very tight race. On the middle school side, each Conference won one of the matches so it was tied 1-1. The team of Aaron Tostado, Kenneth Jacobo, and Victoria Czarnecki (Los Angeles) won their match 203 to 184 against their opponents of Marvin Luca, Michael Llanos, and Miles Gallegos (San Diego). San Diego answered back taking the other team round match. Team of Brina Hallett, John Calderon, and Aiden Welter (San Diego) won their match again Miguel Banchon, Anthony Olguin, and Margarita Lopez (Los Angeles) 195 to 174.
The same occurred on the high school side as well as both Conferences tied 1-1. LA (Bryll Cruz, Dabin Lee, and Matthew Yancheff) took their first team round match with a 191 versus San Diego’s 155 (Oscar Guevara, Gustavo De Leon, and Armando Urbina). San Diego (Anthony Barron, Joshua Hoffman, and Angelica Marasigan), however, won the other match 153 to 146 against LA (Chris Bernal, Vanessa Gonzalez, and Lauren Lo).
The singles (Olympic Round) matches were next and could potentially swing the competition one way or another. After 4 ends though, it was realized that for both the middle school and high school, the Conferences were still tied forcing them into a big one arrow shoot-off! For middle school, LA and SD had each won one of the boys and one of the girls matches. SD’s Anthony Mazzeo won his match over Denilson Jimenez 116 to 113. LA’s Nathan Hernandez won his match with Romain Vergniault 103 to 100. SD’s Sheonne Jech-Galvin won versus Nathalie Chavez 105 to 72. And finally LA’s Jennifer Venegas won her match against Gia Capistrano 87 to 65.
For high school, San Diego won their 2 boys matches while LA won the 2 girls matches. SD’s Stefan George won his match against Matthew Rayco 111 to 89 while teammate Taebien Lee won his match with Eric Zargaryan 96 to 83. For the girls, LA’s Dalar Karimian took her match against Sabrina Santa Cruz 90 to 59. LA’s Arianna Pride also won her match against Tanya Reyes 83 to 74.
Since both the middle school and high school tied 3-3, a single arrow shoot off was necessary to break the tie. Each archer would shoot a single arrow and the team with the highest total points would win. For middle school, it would be San Diego that narrowly took the match with 71 total points to LA’s 68. For high school it was even closer with LA edging out the San Diego team by a single point, 74 to 73!
While we knew that both Conferences had good archers, everyone was astonished by how close these matches turned out. While most parents expected archery to be a quiet game of golf, they were instead on the edge of their seats and cheering for their archers. The archers supported each other and showed great sportsmanship towards their opponents. We would like to thank everyone for this chance to try out a new event and look forward to working out the kinks and preparing a rematch for next season!