Sydney Sonn, senior, inhales and exhales, releasing her final arrow. It whistles past her cheek and onto the target, earning the final points she needs to place first for her age group at the 2023 Missouri State Archery Tournament.
“It was crazy because I honestly didn’t expect to win,” Sonn said. “I was the youngest in my bracket.”
At this state championship, all athletes compete by shooting a target from a 20-yard line, shooting 60 arrows that add up to a sum of 600 points. A bullseye, the innermost ring, is 10 points, and each receding ring decreases by 1 point. Sonn received the highest score in her group: 514 points.
“This is the last tournament of high school for me so it felt so good to get this final win,” Sonn said. “The first tournament I competed in I also got first, so it’s cool to start with a win and finish with a win.”
In addition to placing first in her division, Sonn’s score of 514 set a new state record for the highest score in her USA Archery Junior Olympic Archery Development age division, females ages 18-21, for this indoor state competition.
“I was so excited,” Sonn said. “I was so happy that after everything I went through throughout my archery career I was able to do so.”
Sonn began archery in 2016 after watching Olympic South Korean athletes dominate in archery.
South Korea has won gold medals for archery in every Summer Olympic game since 1984. Sonn is South Korean so she said watching her country do so well is something she is fond of.
“I love that archery connects me with my cultural heritage,” Sonn said. “It’s also a sport that not a lot of people do, so I liked the unique aspect of it too.”
Throughout her archery career, Sonn has had multiple tournament wins. However, for the past two years, she described how she had fallen into a rough patch, struggling to shoot well, so this win held an additional level of significance.
“This was my big comeback,” Sonn said.
Adam Stewart, Sonn’s head coach, said that in archery mental resilience is a highly significant aspect in determining overall good performance. During Sonn’s slump, she worked on mental exercises that strengthened her mental resilience. Once she was able to do so, Stewart noticed how Sonn was able to come back and begin improving.
“For archery it’s called shot IQ,” Stewart said. “Sydney dealt with anxiety in archery which caused a decrease in her scores, but she was able to come a long way in mastering open and closed loop processes which really helped her. She has such a strong mental game now, and she’s been really impressive with what she’s done in the last year.”
In preparation for State, Stewart helped Sonn practice through specific exercises like blank bailing. This is where an archer shoots at a blank wall, eyes either opened or closed.
He said this improves muscle memory in archery, such as mastering body control in the way you use your muscles when firing an arrow.
“Archery is hard,” Stewart said. “Anybody can pull back and hit the bullseye once, but to do it 60 times when the bullseye is the size of about a 50 cent coin takes a lot. One thing that stands out about Sydney is that she is able to pick up on techniques pretty quickly and put them into place.”
Heather Brush, Sonn’s archery teammate, has done archery with Sonn for six years and met her through the sport.
Brush described how archery was able to give her and Sonn the skills needed to work as a team, whether that be in comforting each other through failures or celebrating each other’s wins at tournaments.
“It all kind of solidifies our bond as we both work really hard at the same thing,” Brush said. “It’s great to see the other person grow and achieve exactly what they’ve been dreaming of.”
Brush said she anticipated Sonn’s performance at State because of how she stands out among the athletes of their club, Little Hills Youth Archery.
“She honestly probably works the hardest at trying to level up and get in the top three for tournaments,” Brush said. “She’s great at actually putting in the time and effort into honing her skills even though she has other things going on like school. I admire her for it.”
