Kendra Hunhoff began participating in archery two years ago, but she never thought she would be winning national tournaments this quickly.
“I was totally not expecting it,” she said.
“I came into this and within two or three months of me starting to shoot I started going to tournaments and winning them.
The feeling was amazing. It just came out of nowhere and I was shooting really well.”
Hunhoff, who is 14 years old and will be a freshman in high school this fall, has travelled to Louisville, Las Vegas and Florida for competitions, just to name a few. She will also travel to Ohio and California this summer.
Hunhoff shoots field archery, which is held outdoors and shoots long distances.
But Hunhoff said archery began as something fun to do because she was bored during the summer.
“I decided to try it so I would have something fun to do, and then it got really serious when my coaches told me I should try shooting in some competitions,” she said. “I ended up getting really good and winning, and it was really nice so I just kept going.”
That was when Hunhoff found what she enjoys doing.
“It was priceless,” she said. “When I started I didn’t know how fast things would be moving until all of the tournaments came up. I remember the first tournament I went to, a national tournament, and I hadn’t even been shooting for a year and my coaches felt I should go to nationals in Louisville, Kentucky. I went and placed second, which is pretty good for me considering I had only been in it for barely a year at that point.”
At this point Hunhoff said she has lost track of the number of competitions she has participated in, which take up a lot of her time.
“When it was indoor season it was really busy for me because in February and March I didn’t have a weekend free since I was traveling so much,” she said. “There were state tournaments, sectional tournaments and national tournaments - just a bunch of tournaments I had to be in.”
But Hunhoff has made many friends through archery and traveling, she said, who she gets the chance to see when she competes.
“Archers are the best people you will ever meet,” she said. “Other sports are really competitive, but in archery everyone is so nice. At tournaments you’ll shoot with people who you’re competing with and you guys can be best friends, but when you step on the line it’s just the competition.
“I have great friends in archery and I see them all the time and we have good times, but when we go on the line and we’re starting to shoot we are in the zone and we are focused on the competition.”
Hunhoff practices nearly everyday - at least six days a week - for at least four hours.
“I put a lot of work into archery,” she said. “It’s a really good feeling seeing all of the work pay off. Going to all these tournaments I’ve been doing pretty good, and my expectations for myself are really high. My expectations for my coach are high too, and it just feels great to meet my goals. It’s weird because when I first started I was doing it for fun because I was really bored. Now it’s my thing.”
Now that Hunhoff has found what she loves to do, she said she hopes to continue participating for as long as she can.
“I love traveling and I love going to other places to meet new people and seeing new things. It’s a great feeling,” she said. “I want to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can and become a coach maybe in the future - that would be amazing. I feel amazingly blessed because we have this amazing complex to practice in and I have amazing teammates who are really good friends of mine.
Without all of that archery would be less enjoyable.”
