LANSING, Mich. – Over the weekend, the 2016 National Outdoor Collegiate Archery Championships, hosted by Michigan State Archery Club, was capped with the Columbia archery team represented strongly across the podium. The Lions posted a team runner-up finish in the recurve division, a third-place finish in the compound, along with several top individual finishes led by a runner-up finish by senior Julie Hoffmann in the compound for the second-consecutive season.

The Lions recurve team was sensational en route to a silver medal finish. After receiving and opening round bye, the No. 2 seeded squad of Bianca Gotuaco, Joy Chang and Jenny Han defeated UCLA, 6-2, to advance to the semifinals. A 5-3 victory over Arizona followed as Columbia once again would meet rival and top seed Texas A&M in the championship round. The Aggies downed the Lions 6-2 in the finals as Columbia grabbed a runner-up finish.

In the compound division, the Columbia squad of Julie Hoffmann, Elizabeth Gunawan and Judy Zhou followed a first-round bye with a 212-185 win over UCLA. Despite a semifinals loss to Texas A&M, 210-208, the Lions delivered a third-place victory over James Madison, 208-187, to earn the bronze medal.

Individually, Hoffmann led the Lions in the compound division with her second-straight silver medal finish. The runner-up journey began with a win over Stanford's Kristin Lee, followed by teammate Elizabeth Gunawan, Allie Blazek of Texas A&M, and Claire Estrada of Emmanuel College, before being edged by champion Emily Bee of Michigan State. Katherine Alfaro and Judy Zhou also garnered victories in the compound, including a quarterfinals finish by Alfaro after facing eventual champion Emily Bee.

In the recurve, Bianca Gotuaco led four Lions in the division with a quarterfinals finish. Gotuaco posted wins over Elizabeth Loxterkemp of Wellesley College and teammate Jenny Han before dropping to runner-up Karissa Yamaguchi of Texas A&M. Joy Chang and Aileen Yu also posted victories in the recurve with round of 16 finishes.

“I'm very happy with the results and how the team performed, “ said head coach Derek Davis. “While we did not repeat as nationals champions, we come home heavily decorated with two team podium finishes, an individual podium finish and five All-Americans. As a team, we define the term 'student-athlete' and continue to always put ourselves in a position to win, and that's what matters to me.“

Both Judy Zhou and Julie Hoffmann earned All-American honors in the compound, along with Jenny Han, Bianca Gotuaco and Joy Chang in the recurve. All-American Team Honors are awarded to the top 25% of archers in each division (maximum of 10 per division) based on their combined Indoor and Outdoor National Championship scores. Click here to view the recipients of this honor in all divisions.