FIELD TWP- Four North Woods archers qualified for the National Archery in the Schools Program Western Nationals through their performance at the state tournament, but only one, fifth-grader Clark Danielson, made the 1,400-mile trek to Sandy, Utah to compete.
It was an experience Clark’s mother, Erin Danielson, who also serves as a coach for North Woods, wanted to share with her son.
“This is the first time I’ve been to Utah,” Erin said. “With my older son, we went to Kentucky (Eastern Nationals) four or five years ago. This was a smaller event than Kentucky, but it was pretty darned cool.”
The trip was a bit of icing on the cake for Clark, who had a breakout season in only his second year on the Grizzlies team. Clark scored seven medals in tournament action this year and finished second in the 3D target shooting event at the state meet in Duluth. He also qualified for nationals in the bullseye event, placing third at state.
“He was shaking in his boots the day of the state tournament because he held first place (in 3D) all the way into the last hour of the tournament,” Erin said.
Clark attributed his growth and success this year to several things. The first was practice.
“We practiced at the school every Tuesday and Sunday, and I practiced sometimes at my dad’s where I have an archery target,” he said. There were also additional practice sessions on Thursdays.
Second, Clark said he was shooting with a brand-new bow this year, something that added to his confidence.
A third factor, he said, was his technique when he toed the shooting line, where archers shoot in pairs.
“I always let my partner have the first arrow on the target,” he said. “It gave me more time to breathe.”
“He’s very much of a go, go, go, go kid, but when he gets on the line he very much stops,” Erin said. “He just closes his eyes with his head down, taking it all in and just being in the moment. It’s very interesting to see how this one sport is able to center him.”
And a fourth important reason for his success was his older brother John.
“He showed me a bunch of tricks and how to get better,” Clark said.
Of the two events, Clark said bullseye is his favorite, but at nationals, like state, it was the 3D event where Clark did his best shooting. Against 96 other fifth-graders, Clark placed eighth, and he also ranked eighth among all elementary boys. And his score of 264 placed him in the top 25 percent of all 632 boys of all grade levels to participate in the 3D tournament.
In bullseye, Clark placed 22nd in the 153-boy fifth-grade category and finished in the top third of 925 boys archers of all ages.
Both Erin and Clark were happy with his performance, but Clark appears to have had just as much fun collecting stickers from the many vendors selling archery equipment at the tourney. Not only did he get enough to plaster his bow case with stickers, he also became a kind of walking billboard with three of them proudly stuck to his signature blue hat.
Centershot
While Clark was the only North Woods qualifier to make the trip, a couple of his teammates were in Sandy, too, competing in a companion tournament, the Centershot Western National.
The Centershot bullseye and 3D competitions are open-entry tournaments that families often take advantage of when one child qualifies for nationals and another doesn’t. John Danielson might have participated in Centershot had he not decided to stay home and go to a youth group event instead.
But Randy and Wendy Long made the trip with their sons, sixth-grader Cooper and fifth-grader Brock, for the Centershot events to give them the chance to experience the atmosphere of a national-level competition, and Cooper in particular took full advantage of the opportunity.
Cooper came home as champion in the 3D event, defeating 14 competitors for the sixth-grade boys title. His score was fourth best among middle schoolers and 19th among all 131 boys entered. Brock placed 12th out of 25 fifth-graders and in the middle of the pack at 17th for elementary boys.
And Cooper collected more first-place hardware in the bullseye competition, besting 26 other sixth-graders and 73 middle-schoolers to win those age groupings. Overall, he placed eighth out of 209 competitors. In the 34-boy fifth-grade competition Brock came in 17th, and his score held up for 18th in the elementary division. He ranked 108 against all competitors.