Even though school is out for the summer, Trojan Archery is going strong! This past weekend, Trojan Archery’s Daniel Kwasniewski competed in one of the biggest tournaments in the nation—the SoCal Showdown! In fact, this was the largest USAT competition in USA Archery history. Dan faced stiff competition against some of the world’s best archers, shooting alongside athletes such as Brady Ellison, Jack Williams, and others aiming to qualify for the USA Olympic team. Dan shot strong at SoCal, especially considering it was his first USAT competition. He scored 548/720, for an arrow average of 7.61—an even stronger performance than his already impressive 7.19 average at the California State Outdoors just two weeks earlier.
The California State Outdoor Championships was a big success for our archer Aadi Ghildiyal, who scored 1201/1440, earning a silver medal for the junior women’s recurve. This is an especially impressive accomplishment given that Cal State Outdoors is a full FITA, requiring archers to shoot 72 arrows at four different distances each—70, 60, 50, and 30 meters for recurve women, and 90, 70, 50, and 30 for recurve men. At the 60 meter distance, Aadi broke the Collegiate State Record for recurve women, scoring 319/360. For many archers, being able to complete a full FITA is a goal in and of itself, making Aadi’s medal and record-breaking score all the more remarkable!
Outside of California, Trojan Archers continued to make a name for themselves. Katherine Morrison won a gold medal in the senior women’s recurve at the Oklahoma State Outdoor Championship. Katherine has worked diligently throughout the spring and summer to recover from a shoulder injury, and her teammates couldn’t be more proud of her dedication.
When not preparing to shoot alongside Olympians, Dan Kwasniewski also competed in and won the Pasadena Roving Archers’ 21 or Bust novelty shoot! The 21 or Bust is a fun local fundraiser tournament, and Dan had a great time competing with LA archers and trying his hand at field-style shooting.
As for the rest of Trojan Archery, we continue to train throughout the summer and prepare for the next year’s collegiate tournaments. Congrats again to our summer competitors and medalists!
As we transition from a glorious 2018 – 2019 archery season, the gears behind Trojan Archery continue to churn. Old veterans have stepped down from their administrative positions while new archers rise to pick up the flag. As such, we would like to give a big welcome to our new Executive Board and Officers for the upcoming 2019 – 2020 school year. We are confident that these well-qualified team members will uphold the legacy of Trojan Archery:
President/Armorer – Mac Whitaker
Vice-President – Elizabeth Loxterkamp
Secretary – Katherine Morrison
Treasurer – Erin Ewalt
Director of Education – Simon Trinh
Olympic Recurve Captain – Michelle DeMers
Barebow Captain – Caesar (Mingyu) Cui
Webmaster – Kevin Yan
Click here to get to know our new Executive Board and Officers a little better!
The summer season is upon us here in Los Angeles, but Trojan Archery has been keeping busy nevertheless. Weekly practices continue on at Rancho Park, and for those who would like to share our equipment, resources, and coaches, summer membership is available for $50.
With everyone striving to improve themselves, several of our team members have decided to train and become certified USA Archery instructors. We are holding a summer Level 2 Instructor training course for those who want to join.
On top of that, Trojan Archery now has a new archery class available for in the Fall for USC students! The interest in this class exceeded our expectations, and both sessions are already full. As the summer continues, we will be working out lesson plans and preparing equipment to engage more students in the fun and competitive sport of archery! Until next time, Fight On!
This past weekend, Trojan Archery attended the National Outdoor Collegiate Championships (NOCC) in Dublin, Ohio. This tournament brought together over 60 collegiate archery programs from around the nation and gave our archers the opportunity to compete in an environment they had never experienced before. The Trojan archers that attended the event, Aadi Ghildiyal, Dan Kwasniewski, Elizabeth Loxterkamp, and Michelle DeMers (all Olympic Recurve archers), shot in heat, humidity, rain, and wind. Despite these challenges, we are proud to say that our team performed well and fought on during qualification rounds, team and mixed team events, and single eliminations. Both Dan and Aadi placed in the top 20 archers in their respective divisions following qualification rounds, and Michelle placed in the top 25% in the nation for collegiate archery (National Indoor + NOCC). Our mixed team, Aadi and Dan, and our women’s team, Aadi, Elizabeth, and Michelle, shot strong during their team rounds, and both teams were ultimately eliminated in their respective quarter finals. We look forward to emphasizing team and mixed team events in our training for next season and cannot wait to see how our teams perform in the coming years. During the elimination rounds on the final day of the tournament, our archers battled more than just the regular stresses of the sport due to extreme and fairly unpredictable winds, sometimes enduring gusts up to 45 mph. While the wind brought frustration to many archers on the field, our archers found clarity in their shots. Dan made it past the first round of eliminations, and was eliminated in the 1/16th round by the 3rd seed from the University of Texas. Aadi proved to be an upset to her opponents, and fought on until she was eliminated in the 1/8th round by a former USAT member now attending Texas A&M. Michelle, who was ranked 21st overall during qualifications, also served as an upset to her opponents, making it to the quarterfinals by eliminating the West Region Collegiate Champion in the 1/8 round. Ultimately, Michelle was awarded 8th place in her division at NOCC, which was particularly exciting for the team because this was awarded at the Banquet on the last day of the event. This is the first time Trojan Archery has had a female archer place in the top 8 nationally, let alone 3 in the top 20. It was wonderful to see our archers fight on during this tournament, and even more wonderful to see that although we sent a small team of four archers to NOCC, we still placed in the top 50% out of all the 60 teams at the competition despite fielding only 4 archers where most schools averaged 10-15. Upon the conclusion of this tournament, we find ourselves extremely thankful for the monetary donations and support from our sponsor, FivicsUSA, and our donors during our Ignite Campaign. Their help undoubtedly made attending this tournament possible for our archers. We also offer our thanks to all coaches, and a special thank you to Coach Terri who attended this tournament with our archers. Without her support, the success that our team experienced would not have been possible. We look forward to future training with our coaches and anticipate even more successful seasons to come! And of course, just as our archers did this past weekend, we encourage our community to Fight On!
Congratulations to everyone for surviving another semester! Summer is finally here, and for those of you remaining in Los Angeles, we’ll be organizing a Facebook group to facilitate practice times soon. With the year closing, we also find it important to recognize members of the Trojan Archery Team that have graduated! We offer our congratulations to:
PhD:
Laurel Paxton
Masters:
Alexandra Aloia
Vijay Kothapalli
Sarah Riaz
Undergraduate:
Samantha Stott
Selina Wan
Anthony Garcia
Here’s to all the hard work you put into this team and into earning your degree. We hope you carry the Trojan spirit into your future endeavors! In addition to saying goodbye to the above individuals, we have a number of archers studying abroad next year, and wish them the best of luck as they go abroad:
Allison Ou
Nicole Tubman
To everyone we mentioned and to everyone currently on the team, we are incredibly thankful for your contributions throughout the past years, and we look forward to the years to come. Fight On!
Fueled by our success during indoor season, Trojan Archery ran headfirst into the outdoor season; for many of our archers this would be their first time shooting past 18 meters. This year, Trojan Archery brought more archers to West Regionals than ever before – supporting a 16 person team full of Olympic Recurve and Barebow archers.
Transitioning to outdoor season is not an easy process. We are so proud of the countless hours that each archer dedicated to making the jump from indoor to outdoor. Between going up in draw weight, breaking arrows for the first time, and shooting farther than ever before, this transition often scares away new archers. But as Trojans, we always Fight On, so it was unsurprising that a record number of Trojan Archery members stepped up to the shooting line and shot for gold.
Eager to put this training to the test, our archers travelled down to the Easton Archery Center of Excellence in Chula Vista, CA to attend West Regionals. West Regionals Outdoor Collegiate Championship, WROCC, brings together more than 15 collegiate teams from the region, many with national titles under their belts. The competition combines individual, team, and mixed team (top male and female) rounds, challenging teams to shoot formats that they never have before. Together, we dealt with strong winds, pressure from archers of other universities, and relentless sun. And despite all the stress, Trojan Archery came out victorious. In addition to setting many personal records, many of our team members brought home medals, and we couldn’t be more excited to announce that a few of our archers even made the All West Collegiate Team.
Trojan Archery fought on during the individual qualification and elimination rounds, with Aadi Ghildiyal (Olympic Recurve) and Mac Whitaker (Barebow) placing within the top eight of their divisions. During the team rounds, our women’s Barebow (Nicole Tubman, Allison Ou, and Sarah Riaz) and Olympic Recurve (Aadi Ghildiyal, Michelle DeMers, Katherine Morrison) teams brought home gold, as did our Olympic Recurve Mixed Team (Aadi Ghildiyal and Dan Kwasniewski) Additionally, Aadi and Dan made the Olympic Recurve All West Team and look to make the All American Team at NOCC. We are encouraged by our success in these categories and look forward to the team’s expansion into the compound and bowhunter divisions next fall; we anticipate that the momentum from this season will help us take home a team trophy at next year’s collegiate championships.
For many of our archers, West Regionals marks the end of outdoor season. A few of our archers – Dan Kwasniewski, Aadi Ghildiyal, Michelle DeMers, and Elizabeth Loxterkamp – will be attending National Outdoor Collegiate Championships in Ohio this May and we wish them the best of luck. To the rest of our archers, we cannot express how grateful we are for the work that each member put into this sport and devoted to the team this year. Shoot On!
Last month, Trojan Archery attended the 50th annual USA Archery National Indoor and sent 24 archers to the Olympic Training center in Chula Vista, CA to represent the cardinal and gold!
This was the largest number of archers, we have ever sent to a competition on the national level! Many of our archers were first year competitors, and over half of our archers came up Peanut Butter and broke their Personal Bests during the competition!
Trojan Archery was able to shoot against collegiate universities from all over the nation at this event! Based on each archers performance, it can put them in line to potentially make the Collegiate All-American (top 10 archers in a division in the nation) or Collegiate All-West Team (top 5 archers in a division in the west). Currently, 15-20% of our archers are in line to receive these high accolades depending on their performance throughout outdoor season!
10! 10! 10!
10’s are the lucky number in Vegas. This past weekend Trojan Archery made the drive to Las Vegas to compete in the largest indoor tournament in the world, the Vegas Shoot!
This is the first time Trojan Archery has sent competitors in a number of years. Eight Trojans attended the event getting the chance to meet and shoot with USC alumni, collegiate archers, Olympians and Olympic hopefuls from all over the world (and our soot sprite Pedro had some fun out in town as well!). Congratulations to our archers who competed in flights and were able to walk away with prize money from their respective divisions!
2nd Annual Trojan Archery Fundraiser Tournament!
This past weekend, Trojan Archery held our second annual 600 fundraiser shoot at the Pasadena Roving Archers range. Despite the encroaching rain, the event was a success: baked goods were devoured.
Numerous awards were also won at the end of the day. We would like to congratulate the medalists of each flight:
Olympic Recurve Adult Women 1st Place: Katherine Morrison
Olympic Recurve Adult Women 2nd Place: Elizabeth Loxterkamp
Youth Male Compound 1st Place: Oliver Dremmer
Adult Male Compound 1st Place: Luke Dever
Adult Male Compound 2nd Place: Diego Montano
Youth Male Barebow 1st Place: Aidan Wang
Adult Male Barebow 1st Place: Greg Wiatroski
Adult Male Barebow 2nd Place: Winston Wei
Adult Male Barebow 3rd Place: Mac Whitaker
Adult Female Barebow 1st Place: Nicole Tubman
Adult Female Barebow 2nd Place: Allison Ou
Adult Female Barebow 3rd Place: Lisa We
Adult Male Olympic Recurve 1st Place: Jordon Fong
Adult Male Olympic Recurve 2nd Place: Terrence Giang
Adult Male Olympic Recurve 3rd Place: Justin Cheng
Adult Male Olympic Recurve Guest 1st Place: Daniel Kwasniewski
Youth Female Olympic Recurve 1st Place: Sharanya Dash
Youth Female Olympic Recurve 2nd Place: Emily Ting
We would like to give a huge thanks to all those that participated and volunteered to help our tournament run smoothly, and we hope to see you again next year!
We’re halfway through the Indoor Season, and our Trojan Archers have already amassed 17 titles! We’ve had a tough schedule here with two back-to-back tournaments at the very start of the semester.
CA State Indoor Championships
At CA State Indoor, Aadi Ghildiyal (left) became State Champion for Collegiate Women’s Recurve AND set a new state record! Daniel Kwasniewski became State Champion for Collegiate Men’s Recurve. Alexandra Aloia won silver in Collegiate Women’s Bowhunter and Michelle Demers won silver in Collegiate Women’s Recurve.
In only one year, Trojan Archery came from no medals, to two gold and two silver in the state of California for collegiate archery. We literally sent four archers and came back with four medals. That’s 100% success!
Southern California Indoor Archery Collegiate Championships (SIACC)
At SIACC, hosted by SGA Alumni Association and sponsored by Fivics USA, Trojan Archery dominated the competition in Recurve and Barebow. We competed against several other SoCal archery clubs such as UCLA, UCSD, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, Cal State Long Beach and CSUN.
The 2019 Trojan Archery Team, coaches Terri, Jim, and Luke, and our sponsor, Fivics USA, at the SoCal Indoor Archery Collegiate Championships (SIACC).
Recurve Men Flight 2 – Silver Medal -Brandon Chung
Recurve Men Flight 4- winner – Justin Cheng
Recurve Mixed Teams- Gold Medal- Aadi Ghildiyal and Dan Kwasniewski
This is the most medals we have won in a single competition! We just couldn’t believe how the medals literally stacked up! It is a huge accomplishment to represent this well in this many bow styles and in qualifying scores, round robin eliminations and team rounds. More than half of the team took home awards at the end of the day.
In only a year, we have come a long way as competitors in SoCal claiming 13 titles from only 4 in 2018. Below are our champions from 2018 SIACC: (from left to right) Hei Leong, Rob Campbell, Daniel Kwasniewski, Alexandra Aloia, and George Park. Beside them are our 2019 SIACC champions: (from left to right) Winston Wei, Vijay Kothapalli, Allison Ou, Katherine Morrison, Aadi Ghildiyal, Daniel Kwasniewski, Alexandra Aloia, and Brandon Chung (Justin Cheng also won Flight 4 for a sweet Fivics quiver pouch!).
To Our Coaches
We could not have made it this far without our fantastic coaches. Thank you to our head coach, Terri, and our assistant coaches, Jim and Luke! You have been unwavering support and incredible mentors.
From left to right: head coach, Terri Ashley-Macquarrie, Luke Dever, and Jim Macquarrie.
Too Eager to Rest
We’re not done yet! We have only one weekend off in our competition schedule, and then we face National Indoor and the Vegas Shoot back-to-back once more. Several of our archers have already been practicing straight out of the competition weekend! Though many have an extended weekend, our team members are vigorously preparing for the remainder of the indoor season. We are also preparing our training schedules for the upcoming outdoor season. What can we say? We’ve got Trojan Fever!
Support Your Champions!
Are you impressed by our success and our Trojan Pride? Do you want to beef up our practice schedule and send us to more competitions? There are a number of ways to support this amazing club and team!
Visit the Support Us pages to explore a variety of options, ranging from monetary donations to cardboard, target, and equipment donations.
You can show just as much support when you Send a Shout Out as a thoughtful message, passionate cheer, or creative project. You can motivate and support our team morale! We you need you, Trojans!
We are also hosting our annual fundraiser tournament to support our range and equipment costs, and to provide lodging and transportation for the team. The format is a 600 round, which is two rounds of 10 ends with 3 arrows per end. Archers of all ages are invited to participate. Award medals will be given to the top three archers in each division! We will be providing drinks and snacks, as well as t-shirts and button pins at the event.
Register for the 2019 Trojan Archery Fundraiser 600 Round
Don’t forget to follow the blog (click the option on the sidebar!), as well as our Facebook page and Instagram!
Our archers were hard at work all Sunday training to become certified instructors. They are the bread and butter of the club, responsible for running the range safely, teaching beginners, and developing our archers’ techniques. Thank you and welcome Instructors!
Get Involved!
It’s a new semester and we are getting ready to host First Timer Classes for anyone interested in learning archery for the first time. Your first two lessons are free!
If you’d like to meet us in person and learn more, come find us at the Involvement Fair this Wednesday, 11 am – 2 pm, on Trousdale! We’ll have some small giveaways and cool equipment to show off. We will post our location on Facebook and Instagram.
Follow Us!
Are you reading this blog right now? Do you follow it? Did you know you can follow it? Click on the Follow button in the sidebar! Get your friends and family to follow it! It’s a great way to support your Trojan Archers. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for cool photos, facts, and updates!
We’ll be posting regular updates on our spring competition season, training efforts and social events.
Motivate your fellow trojans by sending good wishes, cheers, chants, poetry, art, memes, whatever creative endeavor you want to contribute to build our club and team pride! We would love to see your contributions!
Happy New Year from everyone here at Trojan Archery!
We hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Our New Year’s Resolution? More archery, of course! Most of us have had archery on the brain all through the academic break (some of us never stopped practicing!), and now we are preparing to enter the thick of Indoor Competition Season. We’re also preparing for round two of recruiting and training new archers.
Beyond our club or personal success, we enjoy all the new faces that pass through each semester, all for different reasons. Even if it is for a single practice, it is our mission to engage an archer and share the experience of the sport. The transformations are amazing to watch. So, as we look forward to the fresh start of competition season, the first experience for many, and to the new archers we’ll meet in the next month, we wonder if archery can be a new (or rekindled) adventure for YOU this year.
Set that Resolution!
Have you always wanted to try archery, but were unsure or didn’t have the time? Do you know a friend or family member who has always wanted to try? Do you want to know what its like to be your favorite archer character?
Maybe you’re already in! Do you want to hit gold? Maybe get more consistent? Want to earn your first award? Or are you on to your next achievement pin? Want to try a new bow style?
Or maybe you’re long distance. Want to be part of our Trojan network? Maybe you’re creative and want to create our new cheer? Or maybe you want some long distance archery advice?
Make Trojan Archery a New Year’s Resolution!
Get More Involved with Trojan Archery
Think about how you would like to incorporate more archery into your life. Make it a goal. Write out achievable steps (baby steps!) to reach that goal. Take an action every day or every week to make it happen.
Below are some simple actions to take to meet your goal of getting more involved with Trojan Archery, specially. We would love to see it happen!
SIGN UP
Follow our newsletter to watch for practice sign ups. There’s no charge for your first two practices! FREE! Equipment and instruction provided. Experience archer with no further expectations than to try it.
FOLLOW US
Follow our Facebook and Instagram! Send us some love and support through the year as we post cool stuff about our activities and about archery in general.
JOIN US
Check out our Membership pages to open a new chapter in your life by committing to a semester, or a year, of archery! There are a number of benefits that come with membership. You can learn more about Team Membership, too, if you want boost your competitive Trojan spirit! Alumni, Faculty, and Staff are also welcome to join.
LEAD US
Check out our expanded Leadership Opportunities if you are interested in getting more involved in the club. The club exists thanks to our student leaders and instructors, as well as volunteers within the club and community. Become a cornerstone of the club and boost your resume at the same time!
SUPPORT US
Check out our new Support Us pages to find out how to support our club and collegiate team. We get limited funding from the University and depend upon our membership dues and fundraising to maintain the range and equipment, increase development opportunities, and to afford our competitions seasons. We also appreciate donations of targets, cardboard, and equipment. You can also send us some love! Give us a shout out to support our club and team members.
CONNECT WITH US
Are you a USC Alum? Are you a Trojan Archery Alum? We believe in the strength of connections through our Trojan network. Not only will you be able to link back to a passion you had (and still have!), but you will be an immense support network for your fellow archers and USC students. Our archers develop valuable leadership skills, time and stress management, mental and physical discipline. When they’re moving on and searching for their next career step, we want to be there to support them! Whether it’s archery or career advice, you can be there (or maybe we can be there for you!). Contact us to become part of the Trojan Archery Alumni Network – see how we have grown, access some cool SWAG, connect with old friends, support new generations!
Best wishes to you for this new year! Have you set any archery resolutions? We’d love to hear from you! Contact us to share your goals or send us a shout out to send us motivational New Year messages.
It’s final examination season here at USC, with classes winding down and students hitting the libraries. Here at Trojan Archery, however, we decided to celebrate the last days of class by participating in the final qualifier for the SoCal Indoor Archery Collegiate Championship (SIACC) down at Cal State Long Beach, because, after all, archery is life.
For several of our members, it was their first competition, and what a day it was for first experiences. Despite the downpour of a few days ago, the weather was incredibly pleasant, with bright blue skies and a brisk wind (that may or may not have had an adverse effect on the Webmaster’s arrow flights). Old friendships on the shooting line quickly resurfaced, and new ones forged themselves solidly as the day went on. Laughs were in no abundance in between ends, either, with a heated debate over the right way to eat string cheese taking place (for those of us that eat it like a candy bar instead of peeling it, you know the flak you get for that) and the image of our beloved coach Jim eating one of our mochi cats imprinting itself firmly into our minds. It was a wonderful end for the fall semester, and bears good tidings as we move into the spring season.
As a last announcement, we are thrilled to announce a new addition to the Trojan Archery E-board: Henry Connor, our resident “barebow big boy,” who has accepted the role of barebow team captain. We are very excited to have Henry among our team leaders, if a bit wary of him playing “All Star” on a recorder at team events.
Until next time, best of luck with final exams, and shoot on!
Outside of California, Trojan Archers continued to make a name for themselves. Katherine Morrison won a gold medal in the senior women’s recurve at the Oklahoma State Outdoor Championship. Katherine has worked diligently throughout the spring and summer to recover from a shoulder injury, and her teammates couldn’t be more proud of her dedication.
