After making it to their first ever nationals appearance, the hunt seat team received seventh place this past weekend.
Nationals, which took place in Harrisburg, Pa., hosted sixteen different teams from all over the country including Stanford University, LSU and Purdue.
“It’s a little bit different,” said head coach Tenley Struhs. “The venue is much larger, there’s more teams you’re competing with (and) it’s a bigger crowd.”
Before going to nationals, the hunt seat team had won six out of ten shows during the season and became regional champions.
Then, the team traveled to W.Va. for Zones where they took first place, earning them a trip to nationals.
The team is also considered to be very young for going to nationals, as it includes four freshman, two sophomores, and one junior.
“It is kind of unique in the fact that every rider competing at nationals is a junior or below,” Struhs said. “It really is amazing that we even got to nationals with such a young team.”
Each day of competition, the team would wake up and arrive at the show grounds before 6 a.m. just to watch the horses.
“Every morning they would set the jump course so we’d know what the course was going to be,” Struhs said. “Then we watched the horses warm up and try to do as much preparation as we could till it came down to those two minutes in the ring.”
On Thursday, freshmen Sam Psanis, Kayla Bean and Mattie Boyd competed in various classes, but only Psanis received a placing, earning fourth in novice over fences.
Bean and Boyd did not receive an official placing due to not making the top ten in each of their classes.
On Friday Bean competed again, but in a different class called intermediate fences. This time, Bean placed fourth and gave the team its second placing of the weekend.
Freshman Ryan Thornsberry and sophomore Sarah Hayes also competed on Friday, but only Hayes placed fourth in the walk/trot/canter class.
On Saturday, junior Jane Sarosy and sophomore Madi Rohl competed but only Sarosy placed fourth in her class, open fences.
At the end of the weekend, after having four of their seven riders place in fifth or better, the team received seventh place.
Seventh place was a great placing for the teams first time to nationals considering there are 393 hunt seat teams around the nation and only sixteen get to go to nationals, according to Struhs.
Freshman Mattie Boyd said the journey throughout the season had the most impact on her at nationals.
“Going from a team that has never been to Nationals to placing in the top ten was a truly awesome feeling,” Boyd said.
But even after all the success the team has had this season, Struhs said she is already looking ahead to next year.
“I would love to make it to nationals again, that would be amazing,” she said.
