Anamosa’s David Machart on target again

Anamosa High School senior David Machart barely missed perfection last weekend, shooting a 299 score to defend his state title in the Iowa Afterschool National Archery in the Schools Program.

Two weeks earlier Machart, 18, became the first Iowan to record a perfect 300 in an event sanctioned by that organization.

Competitors shoot 30 arrows at a standard bull's eye target, half from 10 meters, half from 15 meters. Arrows that strike the 3-inch center ring score 10 points; arrows that land outside the center ring score progressively less depending upon their distance from the center.

In the competition March 5 at the Jacobson Building on the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Machart stuck 29 of his arrows in the center ring and the other arrow in the ring closest to it.

Machart's 299 was the highest score registered in a field of 727 boys and 558 girls.

The second-highest score, a 295, was recorded by Benjamin May, a freshman at Iowa Christian Academy in West Des Moines.

Logan Kelly, an eighth-grader at Mount Vernon Middle School, shot a 294 for the day's third-highest score. Backed by teammate Mya Reyhons' 290 — the third-highest score among 558 female competitors — the Mount Vernon Middle School team placed first among the 15 teams competing in the middle school division.

The top overall female shooters were ninth-grader Kendal Stokes of Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School and Sarah Kuhlman, a junior at Valley High School in West Des Moines. Both shot 292s, but Stokes took second by virtue of one more arrow in the center ring.

Lane Mollenhauer of Central City shot a 289 — good for third among 290 middle school boys and seventh among the 727 male competitors.

Spencer High School won the high school division team title, beating 18 other teams with a score of 3,400. The following Eastern Iowa high school teams (with scores in parentheses) placed in the top 10: Anamosa, second (3,373), Mount Vernon, third (3,366), Alburnett, seventh (3,322), Solon, eighth (3,283), Washington (Iowa), ninth (3,279) and Center Point-Urbana, 10th (3,262).

The team from Washington Elementary in Mount Vernon scored 3,063 to top the 15-team field in the elementary school division.

Fifth-grader Allison Rees of Lincoln Elementary in Washington (Iowa) shot the top score in the elementary division — a 279. Alburnett fifth-grader Oliver Burns shot a 278.

Machart finished second last year in national and world competitions and won a $10,000 scholarship for his runner-up finish at the national meet.

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