May 19, 2017
Rutherford County Schools
For the first time in Tennessee NASP archery history, a team from Rutherford County finished in the top ten in the nation.
Buchanan Elementary School’s archery team finished eighth out of 180 elementary teams from across the nation and also placed ninth out of 56 elementary teams in the 2017 NASP/IBO 3D Challenge.
As a team, they scored 3201 out of a possible 3600, which bested their second place state tournament score by 19 points.
Buchanan’s archery team was just one of fifteen archery teams from Rutherford County to compete last weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, at the 2017 NASP National Archery Tournament.
Rutherford County teams qualified for the national tournament by shooting a qualifying score at the Tennessee State NASP Tournament in late March.
Competing along with Buchanan were Christiana Elementary, Brown’s Chapel Elementary, Rockvale Elementary and Stewartsboro Elementary.
Central Magnet’s high school archery team is the first high school team from Tennessee to finish in the top twenty-five in the nation. They finished 22nd out of 248 high school teams.
Central’s team had a school record score of 3391 out of 3600.
The other Rutherford County high schools that competed were Oakland High School and Riverdale High School along with individuals from Stewarts Creek and Siegel high schools.
Stewarts Creek Middle School archery team ranked 53rd out of 242 middle schools and was the highest ranked Rutherford County middle school.
Other area middle schools included Stewarts Creek, Central Magnet, Christiana, Whitworth-Buchanan, Rockvale and Blackman.
This year, four Rutherford County archers ranked in the top ten nationally for the first time in county history.
Mason Putnam, from Buchanan Elementary School, ranked ninth out of 2,321 elementary male archers with a score of 285 out of 300.
Kayleigh Corban and Alison Blanton, both from Central, were tied with three other archers for eighth out of 2,150 high school female archers with a score of 293 out of 300.
Connor Smathers tied for third with five other archers with a score of 296 out of 300.
Smathers was the first archer from Tennessee to have a chance to finish in the top five nationally in any division or gender.
He and the five other archers competed in a tie-breaker shoot off of five arrows from the 15-meter distance. Connor was still tied with two of the archers for sixth place and eliminated from the five-archer scholarship shoot off for a chance at a $20,000 cash scholarship.
The next stop for several of these teams will be July 20 – 22 at the 2017 NASP World Archery Tournament in Orlando, Florida.