{"id":34017,"date":"2023-05-16T01:53:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T07:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-senior-braden-schmittel-wins-archery-nationals-receives-full-scholarship\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:15:37","slug":"dolores-senior-braden-schmittel-wins-archery-nationals-receives-full-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-senior-braden-schmittel-wins-archery-nationals-receives-full-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores senior Braden Schmittel wins archery nationals, receives full scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The weekend of April 1-3, Colorado state champion Braden Schmittel shot his way to the S3DA Western National Championship, shooting in the S3DA Olympic Recurve archery division at the championship in Vernal, Utah.<\/p>\n

Schmittel has been competing in archery for more than 10 years through local 4-H programs and won on his second trip to nationals, earning him multiple college scholarship offers.<\/p>\n

According to Schmittel\u2019s coach Stacey Weyand, who has been coaching archery at the 4-H level for four years, archers are only allowed to shoot one discipline at nationals once before they move on to the next discipline.<\/p>\n

Last year at his first appearance at nationals, Schmittel shot in the 3-D discipline and placed 10th overall before moving on to Olympic Recurve this year. Now, he will move on to the compound discipline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of like any competition,\u201d Schmittel said. \u201cYou know, going into it I got high hopes and I had a couple of problems with my bow during it, so I wasn\u2019t expecting to win. I was confident I was going to get top three at least, I just didn\u2019t think I\u2019d win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After being named national champion, Schmittel was flooded with scholarship offers from 13 colleges and said he has decided to attend a junior college in Illinois called Rend Lake College, where he will work toward his business degree while taking a welding class and competing in archery at the collegiate level.<\/p>\n

\"Braden
Braden Schmittel won the S3DA Western National Championship in Olympic Recurve at his second trip to nationals. (Kendra Schmittel\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Braden
Braden Schmittel plans to continue shooting archery in college while also working toward going pro. (Kendra Schmittel\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Braden
Braden Schmittel plans to continue shooting archery in college while also working toward going pro. (Kendra Schmittel\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He said he also hopes to pick up some sponsors and work toward either going pro or competing for a larger college or university in the future.<\/p>\n

Schmittel said competing in large competitions like nationals have motivated him to try to keep pursuing the sport at a higher level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like any sport you know, you do it for a while and it gets a little boring and then you go shoot at those bigger competitions and you just want to keep doing it. You know, it\u2019s just really good experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also spoke of multiple people who have helped and encouraged him along the way and of the support he\u2019s received as he works toward his goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the people that have helped me get to the point where I\u2019m at have, I wouldn\u2019t say pushed, but they\u2019ve more encouraged me to step outside of my comfort zone, and not just, you know, settle for what I think I deserve and try to go to that next level of competition. And just being encouraging. That\u2019s a big thing,\u201d Schmittel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrad Wright, Kelly and Stacey Weyand, John Butler, as well as Mike, Chuck and everybody at Goods for the Woods \u2026 without them you know, I\u2019d probably still be in the same boat as I was several years ago. They\u2019ve really helped me out a lot. They\u2019ve taken a lot of time out to come up to the range or just help me out. Because, you know, it\u2019s kind of hard to be successful at a sport when you don\u2019t have the best coaches. I\u2019m just really grateful for all of them,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Weyand expressed her excitement about Schmittel winning nationals and noted that he is not only an impressive archer, but a great person to coach as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cBraden is also an incredible leader,\u201d Weyand said. \u201cHe\u2019s the first one to jump in and help one of the younger kids with if they\u2019re having trouble shooting or if their form is not quite right or even if they\u2019re just having a bad day and kind of having a little bit of attitude. He\u2019s the first one to jump in and try to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s also always considerate of being an example for the younger kids. He\u2019s always helpful. He\u2019s always the first one to help set up, breakdown and do anything that needs to be done,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Weyand said she hopes Schmittel will be able to compete at a shoot in Las Vegas which will take place in February 2024, saying that it\u2019s one of the biggest archery shoots worldwide.<\/p>\n

Schmittel will graduate from Dolores High School on May 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schmittel wins shooting in the Olympic Recurve division<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[947,2299,1206,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-4-h","tag-archery","tag-dolores-county-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82445,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34017\/revisions\/82445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34017"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}