2013 California State Championships RESULTS
Archery has a great community. Whether you practice at a local range or with a club, you will soon find that fellow archers are friendly and quick to help. Even at national competitions where team spots may be on the line and competition is fierce, it often feels like a big family reunion as archers catch up on life, laugh, and have a good time shooting archery with each other. We are happy to see this same sense of community develop within OAS. Community is a core value of our program and we strive to create events and competitions that foster its growth both within and between school teams. This was especially true at our 2013 California State Championships as we brought together teams from both the Los Angeles and San Diego Conferences.
2013 California State Championships RESULTS
The strong ties between our schools was evident right from the start as teams arrived at the venue. Some of our schools, like Almeria, Sequoia, and Alder in Fontana, have been long time friends and rivals, while others, like our new San Diego schools, only met the month before at their Conference Championships. For both cases though, the coaches and archers greeted each other warmly and shared in their nervousness and excitement. Experienced archers and coaches were quick to help newer ones find their target assignments and explain the shooting procedures.
After introductions and our National Anthem, the ranking round of 36 arrows was soon underway. The weather was slightly overcast which made for nice, calm and cool conditions. After seeing the results of both the LA Championships and the SD Championships in April, we knew that the competition was going to be really tight as both conferences have very good archers. Just by looking up and down the range, it was amazing to see how many arrows were packed into the gold and it was clear that many of the archers were stepping up their game.
For the middle school boys, Anthony Mazzeo took first with a 342 which was 14 points higher than his 2nd place performance the month before at the San Diego Championships. Denilson Jimenez from Alder also improved his score from the LA Championships and placed 2nd with a 338. Noah Dashkovitz (Almeria) took third with a close 335 and Emilio Vittorio Radafshar (John Muir) placed fourth with a 318.
On the girls middle school side, Sheonne Jech-Galvin repeated her first place performance at the SD Champs by taking first with a strong 319. Jennifer Venegas of Sequoia MS also broke 300 with a 304 which gave her the 2nd place spot. Nancy Sandoval-Espinoza (John Muir) and fellow teammate Lily French both were neck and neck. In the end Nancy would take 3rd by a single point.
High school boys saw a tight race between John Muir’s Stefan George and Glendale’s Dabin Lee who had who had a significant increase in score, shooting 61 points higher than during the LA Champs the month before. In the end, Stefan would defend his 2012 State Champs Ranking Round Title with a 328 to Dabin’s 316. Following in 3rd place was Taebien Lee (John Muir) with a 279 and in 4th was Matthew Yancheff (Glendale) with a 271.
For girls high school, we saw a very strong all girls team from North Hollywood. Crystal Thompson led the group with a 298. Glendale’s Lauren Lo snagged 2nd with a 268, just 2 points ahead of North Hollywood’s Arianna Pride. Daisy Gonzalez (Glendale) took 4th with a 259.
The top 3 archers in each division received a special archery jersey from our sponsors. 1st place received a jersey from Easton, 2nd place from Hoyt, and 3rd from the CSULB archery team. We would like to thank all of our sponsors including the Easton Foundations, Easton Technical Products, Hoyt Archery, and the CSULB Archery team for their support of our program and making this event possible.
During lunch our organizers worked quickly to verify results, sort, and create the brackets for the afternoon Olympic and Team Round matches. Once teams were back at the venue we also had a new event to try out, our All-School Team Competition. In an effort to increase team spirit and Conference unity, we introduced this event during this year’s season. At the LA and SD Conference Championships in April, the top 10 archers were selected to represent their Conference at the State Championships. This included the top 2 boys and top 2 girls from the Olympic Round Matches, as well as the top 2 Team Round teams (3 archers per team).
Learn more about the All-School Competition HERE.
See the RESULTS from the All-School Competition HERE.
The final events in the afternoon were the Olympic and Team Round matches. Both events occur at the same time, so archers chose which one they would compete in. For the Olympic Round (OR), archers are ranked according to their ranking round scores and then put into a single elimination bracket. There is a separate bracket for boys and girls as well as middle and high school. For the Team Round, each team consists of 3 archers of mixed gender and they are ranked according to their combined ranking round score. There is a separate team round bracket for middle and high school.
For boys middle school the gold and bronze medal matches were very close. For the gold, Anthony Mazzeo would take it by 4 points, 108 to Noah Dashkovitz’s 104. The bronze was earned by a mere 2 points. Nathan Hernandez shot a 104 to Romain Vergniault’s 102.
For the girls, Nathalie Chavez captured the gold with a 101. Julie Perez earned her second silver OR medal after taking it last year at the 2012 State Champs. Sheonne Jech-Galvin took the bronze after a good match with teammate Lily French.
For the team round matches, Almeria’s team of John De La O, Omar Arellano, and Henry Herrera took top honors after a battle with John Muir’s team of Nancy Sandoval-Espinoza, Jesus Ibarra, and Angel Ortega who would take the silver. For the bronze, fellow LA school, Alder MS (Aaron Tostado, Kenneth Jacobo, Victoria Czarnecki) would take the match over San Diego’s Magnolia Science Academy (Antonio Sandoval, Michael Llanos, Erik Self).
On the high school side, we saw Stefan George defend his 2012 title in the Olympic Round. After a single arrow shoot off in the semi-finals against Gelndale’s Matthew Yancheff, Stefan moved on to the gold medal match against Glendale’s Dabin Lee. Both archers were locked onto the gold and were only a single point apart going into the final end. Stefan’s 104 narrowly earned him the gold over Dabin’s 102. For the bronze, Taebien Lee would take 3rd against Matthew Yancheff, 105 to 95.
For the girls we saw match ups between Glendale and North Hollywood High. Crystal Thompson took first with a 89 to Lauren Lo’s 64. Daisy Gonzalez also shot an 89 which earned her the bronze against Arianna Pride.
In the high school team round matches, Glendale displayed the depth of their team, taking both the gold (team of Bryll Cruz, Matthew Rayco, and Chris Bernal) and bronze (team of Eric Zargaryan, Dalar Karimian, and Thomas Toyoda) medals. John Muir also had two teams medal, taking the silver (team of Joshua Hoffman, Anthony Barron, and Sabrina Santa Cruz) and 4th (team of Maric Herzog, Kai Rensberry, and Raven Williams).
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We would like to thank everyone for coming out to the competition and for making it such a fun day. Thanks to the support of archers, coaches, parents, school admins, and more we have been able to grow significantly over the last several years. Our very first State Championships in 2011 had only 7 archers competing. This year we had 88! We have a lot of work ahead of us as we rework our rules, formats, and more to better serve our archers, but we look forward to it with eagerness and excitement as we prepare for the next year of OAS. Thanks again!
~ OAS