In her first three rounds of five shots from 10 meters, McKenzie Wirtz was perfect.
Her scorecard read 50, 50, 50.
When the quivers were moved back to 15 meters for the final three rounds, Wirtz shot another 50. Then in the second round, she just missed the center of the target on one of her shots.
Undaunted, she finished that round and her final five shots hitting dead center.
Her final score read 299. A perfect score in archery is 300.
The Seymour High School senior couldn’t stop smiling and even shed some tears of joy as she was congratulated by coaches, teammates and family members.
She knew she set a school record (the previous mark was 295) and a personal record (her previous best was 290), but she didn’t know until the Indiana NASP State Bullseye Tournament was over Saturday that she won the state title and shot a tournament record score (the previous best was 296).
Wirtz finished first out of 350 high school girls, first out of 76 senior girls and first out of 956 overall girls from the three divisions — elementary, middle and high school.
“That’s crazy,” the 18-year-old said after Tuesday morning’s practice in the SHS auxiliary gymnasium. “People still ask me about it and they are like, ‘So congratulations, but that’s kind of crazy,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know. I still can’t believe it.’ I would have never thought my freshman year that I would be in this position — never. I was like, ‘295, that’s like top dog. You can’t get any better than that.’”
On Saturday, though, she did do better than that.
“Seymour archery has a state champion, and that’s just awesome,” head coach Jill Purkhiser said, smiling.
With the 24 archers split into two places Saturday inside a building at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Purkhiser and her assistant coaches went back and forth to check on their progress.
After the first round at 10 meters, Wirtz told Purkhiser she shot her first 50, and Purkhiser said, “Do it again.”
After the third round, Wirtz told Purkhiser she shot a perfect round, and she said, “Wow! That’s awesome. Well, do it at 15.”
She nearly did. Purkhiser was glad to see Wirtz’s close miss in the second round not rattle her.
“That’s what I was impressed with,” Purkhiser said. “She came back and she was like, ‘It was a 49,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, that’s awesome.’ She even said, ‘Well, if all I shoot is 9s now, I’ve still got a 294.’ She didn’t let it rattle her. She stayed in the moment, she stayed with it.”
Before Wirtz shot her last arrow, she glanced back at Purkhiser and noticed her staring at the target. Wirtz then hit the center one last time.
“I remember coming off the line and looking back and (Purkhiser) is jumping up, trying not to make any noise because it’s dead silent, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh! I think I just beat the school record,’” Wirtz said. “That’s all I thought about at first, and she was like, ‘Girl, you might have won the whole thing,’ and I was like, ‘Really?’”
Yes, really. Wirtz wound up winning it all.
“I still think about it almost every day because those are numbers that you dream of. You don’t actually think that you would go out and shoot that,” she said.
Purkhiser said in her 14 years of coaching archery, this was her third time seeing an archer shoot 299. The others were when she coached in Kentucky.
Looking at this season’s national rankings online, only one other high school girl, two high school boys and one middle school girl have shot 299. Only one high school boy has shot a perfect 300.
“Once it clicks, once you know that feeling, it just happens,” Purkhiser said. “For (Wirtz) to shoot the way she did, I’m hoping that she knows that feeling, she’s got that feeling and it clicks for her now.”
Purkhiser said she became emotional because Wirtz has overcome a lot this year. At the beginning of the season, the coaches noticed Wirtz’s shooting was off.
Assistant coach Drew Purkhiser in particular helped her overcome her struggles. By the time the Owls competed in their only tournament, Wirtz shot in the 280s.
“We knew she was coming up but still had no idea this 299 was in there,” Purkhiser said, smiling. “The tears just came. All of the work that she has put in — she’s a four-year archer — paid off.”
Wirtz said she shot a bow with her dad a little bit when she was younger, but she didn’t do it competitively until joining the SHS team her freshman year.
“I actually had to start out shooting the opposite eye dominance of what my dad taught me, so that was very different at first,” she said of going from right-handed to left-handed. “Then I got used to it, and it just felt like a glove after a little bit.”
She surprised herself by shooting 289 as a sophomore — the highest score among SHS girls that season.
“Throughout the years, things started clicking,” Wirtz said. “I got more of a natural flow to how I shoot and a natural rhythm to how I shoot, and it was just a ton of little things that I didn’t know I needed to work on until I got out here and it was like, ‘Oh yeah, you were doing this and you should be doing that.’”
Again as a junior, Wirtz had the highest SHS girls score, bumping up to 290.
“Honestly, it’s just going out there and not even thinking about it, not having anything on your mind, just going out there with a clear mind, not any expectations,” she said. “I like to set expectations for myself, and it’s hard whenever I don’t meet those expectations. It’s like, ‘Aw, man. I really should have shot better,’ but for me, if I go in there with no expectations and I just shoot to shoot and I just do what I need to do, it works really, really well for me.”
Going into the state tournament, Wirtz said she was nervous because Seymour’s big state qualifier was canceled, and the Owls had to do qualifications during a practice.
“It was a little bit scary, I’m not going to lie, because I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it to nationals, it’s my last year shooting at state and we only had shot one tournament before this,” she said. “Usually, you can predict what happens at the next tournament, but I was a little bit nervous and anxious. I talked to some of my friends about it, and I was like, ‘I’m just nervous right now.’ I’m not usually that way.”
Once she stepped up to the line, though, it didn’t appear the nerves got to her.
“It just clicked for me,” Wirtz said. “My first round, I got a 50, and I had a gut feeling that something good was going to come out of this. I didn’t know that (299) was going to come out, but it did.”
Representing Seymour and having the support of her teammates, coaches and family members helped Wirtz, too.
“I could feel it through Jill. She was like, ‘You’re really supported, you’re really doing good for us and I’m so proud of you,’” she said. “Just to feel that from her was something I’ll never forget.”
Then finding out this week that the team qualified for the national tournament in May in Louisville, Kentucky, and she was one of four Owls receiving a $500 scholarship from Indiana NASP, Wirtz has a lot to look forward to and work toward.
Before the national tournament, the Owls have home matches April 9 and 30 and go to North Decatur High School for a tournament April 23.
“The big thing for me moving on is going to be just trying to enjoy what I’m doing and focus on focusing and just not being too worried about what I’m getting and just shooting how I normally shoot,” Wirtz said. “It’s really about mindset for me personally. It’s like, ‘All right, you’ve got to keep going.’”
At a glance
Seymour High School placed 13th out of 35 teams in the high school division of Saturday’s Indiana NASP State Bullseye Tournament.
Coach Jill Purkhiser said 11 of 24 archers shot personal-best scores, and 22 shot above their average.
The Owls’ scores were McKenzie Wirtz 299, Eli Wood 285, Seth Lane 270, Rikki Dial 269, Lane Schroer 268, Hannah Ackeret 268, Jacob Jones 267, Dorismar Ortiz 265, Jessica Hougland 265, Sydni Burton 264, Megan Hohnstreiter 264, Trina McDonald 264, Timothy Burton 261, Matthew Schluckbier 261, Kayla Baker 258, Sotaro Miyagawa 258, Lucy Horton 257, Ava Cooley 257, Hannah Grantham 256, Audrey Redlin 256, Kinsley Folsom 255, Ashley Paredes 255, Mason Burns 252 and Jaden Bevers 242.
For full results from the tournament, visit nasptournaments.org/TournamentDetail.aspx?tid=7233.