BSMA earns gold, silver, bronze medals at Nationals

Big Sky Martial Arts had 11 athletes compete at AAU Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., June 28-July 3. BSMA earned one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at Nationals.

Black belts Alan Bowman, Zach Waldher and Josh Dohr competed on the first day.

Bowman lost his first match 7-6, while Waldher won his first match 5-4, but bowed out of his second outing to an injury. Dohr dominated his first two matches, winning 13-6, 14-7, but lost in the finals 16-15. That earned him a second place in the 14-17 age division, which also qualified him to compete at this year’s U.S. Team Trials.

 The second day featured BSMA’s youngest athletes. Bella Waldher,  8-9 green/blue belt division, won her first two matches 18-9, 9-2, but lost in the semifinals 17-7 to take home a bronze.

Brady Kazmier, 8-9 green/blue belt, won his first three matches 7-0, 9-2, 7-0 before losing in the finals 9-1 to take home the silver.

Michael Bedford, 10-11 green/blue belt, dropped his first match 11-4.

Dakota Arndt, 12-13 red belt, had a bye, won his second round match 9-1 and lost in the finals 11-7 to claim silver.

Cheyenne Arndt, 8-9 yellow belt, lost in the finals 17-12 to take silver. She also claimed bronze in forms.

On the final day, Danielle Smith had a bye and won her finals 15-6 to earn gold in the 14-17 red belts. Jackson Waldher, 12-13 black belts, won his first match 8-0, and lost his second match on a tie-breaker after it was tied 9-9. Cassidy Meade, 12-13 black belt, lost 12-10.

“All the kids did a great job on forms day (last day), but because of the subjective nature of forms it is hard to predict the outcome,” BSMA coach Master John Paul Noyes said.

“Overall, the team did a great job and we as coaches where proud of the kids’ work.”

Also coaching BSMA at Nationals was Master Debbie Noyes.

Nationals featured five days of competition with 2,000 competitors from around the country.