Hanyi Wang

Hanyi Wang

Cognitive Science

Senior Nickname: Leggo My Eggo

USA Archery Level 2 Instructor
2020-2022 Vice President
2019-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Hanyi may be terrifying to face during a competition, but she’s an adorable pancake during club practice. She had always wanted to try archery and seeing the free workshops was her chance and she got sucked in. She originally wasn’t sure what discipline to fall into, deciding between olympic recurve or barebow. She started off with barebow because it was affordable as she was a broke international student and was under the impression that maybe she’ll change to olympic recurve by buying the tab that could be used for it. (Spoiler: she did not). Her first year competitive career was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite having to return to China, she kept up practicing with her teacher that also did archery. She later then was elected to be Vice President for 2020-2021 and then reelected for 2021-2022.

After the university opened up for Fall 2022, she has returned not just to do archery but participate in her favorite part of SGA which was the social experience of meeting people and friendship. Throughout her later years in this club she became regarded as the barebow archer of SGA as she dominates indoor. She also had her fair share of mishaps happen during competitions as her weirdest memory during 2023 Indoor Nationals where she went to the bathroom and came back to shoot her end in 20 seconds. Unfortunately, due to finances and a wrist injury she wasn’t able to compete in outdoor season. However during the twilight months of her graduating year she finally participated in an outdoor competition, 2023 CORR, where she faced off against an eternal UCI rival.

Moving forward, she aims to stay in San Diego and will be taking a gap year to study for the GRE and prepare for grad school applications. She wants to continue doing archery after graduation as well. We wish her the best of luck when it comes to applying to grad school and hope she becomes a graduate student at UCSD. May she perfect a waffle recipe with her new waffle iron.

Greatest Pancake Recipe:
Oatmeal Flour
Banana
Real Milk (formerly plant milk)

Shane Jost

Shane Jost

Marine Biology, Minors in Anthropology and Archaeology

Sixth College

Senior Nickname: Trad Chad

2023-2023 Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2023 West Regional Barebow Mixed Team Bronze

Although Shane was a late addition to our club, he left a lasting impression. Shane shot for many of his formative years at Camp Marston, however he fell out of archery in his later teen years. He shot occasionally post-high school, but it wasn’t until he transferred to UCSD that he decided to full send on archery in his senior year. He shot 3200 arrows the December before trying out for the outdoor team, which he made by shooting a traditional, off the shelf bow with feather arrows, a stand out from the typical olympic style recurve bow most club members shoot.

Despite not shooting your typical barebow setup, Shane truly embodies the barebow mentality. His favorite archery memories come from tournaments where he and his opponents would sing songs during shooting matches just for the silliness of it. He finds it important to share in the vibes with his fellow barebows.

He loves the feeling of being part of a team that SGA brought for him. Going into his only collegiate tournament with the team, WROCC, Shane felt like an alien because of shooting traditional archery. However, due to Coach Keaton sticking by his side throughout all his Olympic Rounds, he truly felt supported. Trad is a different vibe, being in a competitive space is unknown and out of place, but being in those individual rounds and team rounds at Westies 2023 he really felt like part of a team. We really appreciate the spirit and determination Shane brought to our team!

Shane has had a lot of struggles throughout his archery career, from a fairly severe recurring shoulder injury to his low income compared to most archers, but it just meant he had to work against the odds. He really puts his all into archery, shooting countless arrows, focusing heavily on his form, and even coding a score tracker to follow his and his teammates’ improvement throughout the months. He emphasizes that in archery, form will get you everywhere.

After graduation, Shane plans to train for his private pilot certification and apply to the International Guard for a fighter slot. He’s also publishing a novel serially in his free time.

On the archery side, Shane has helped form a community college archery team while he gets his pilot certification. For that team, he earned a gold individual medal at WROCC 2024. He intends to transfer to olympic recurve and aims for a spot on the Armed Forces Archery Team. We wish Shane the best in all his future endeavors, and look forward to seeing him at more collegiate tournaments next year!

Luis Zhang

Luis Zhang

Math Econ

Senior Nickname: The Gacha Grindset

2019-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Luis first found out about Sun God Archery on Library walk. From there, he went on to join in on the workshops and practice. He joined the archery team shortly after and competed in SIACC in 2020. He wasn’t just on the archery team, he was also part of Triton Siege. Thus with the COVID-19 lock downs occurring, he is suspect #1 in bringing the culture of Siege into SGA during the pandemic from 2020-2021.

Once the pandemic has ended, he returned to the archery team competing in more tournaments leading up to his last tournament with the club, SoCal Showdown. With his return, he has a desire to wipe out the barebow division for some reason. However, he requests a barebow shooter, Brooklyn, to shoot an apple off his head should he ever questions something. If he wanted to live instead he would call on Michael Yeh.

Luis continues to do archery after graduation. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in Financial Engineering at Columbia. There he started to form a mens archery club.

Yu-Ting Chen

Yu-Ting Chen

PhD Chemical Engineering

Senior Nickname: King yuting

2021-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Yu-Ting first joined SGA in 2021, which was also his first year competing. Prior to joining SGA, Yu-Ting first learned archery through the UCSD Recreational classes and from there he became committed to this sport. Searching the internet for his first starter bow he bought a Samick Sage recurve bow continuing his practice. Later he then looked for his second bow…specially he was looking for the highest poundage in a commercial recurve bow with his draw length bringing the draw weight to 80#.

His favorite memory with SGA was his first year competing for the team during indoor season at SIACC and Indoor Nationals. Unfortunately he was not able to compete in outdoor season much as he has much conflict with his work as a PHD student. Despite this, Yu-Ting made an effort to practice at the field and shoot more in his apartment.

Yu-Ting plans to stay in the area looking for a industry job based around batteries of which he has done much research on. He also had bought a hunting compound bow in hopes of hunting as well in the future. We wish the best of luck with Yu-Ting with his future career.

Nick Hale

Nick Hale

Chemistry

Warren College

Senior Nickname: All Hail Hale

2019-2020 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Nick first joined SGA during his freshman year of college after one of the officers shared about it in a Class of 2023 discord. SGA was the first club he had heard of and decided to join to make some new friends. During his first year, Nick shot in the bowhunter division and competed with the team at several tournaments. However, after shooting bowhunter his first year, Nick decided to switch to barebow because he felt he wanted to be challenged. He explained that while 9s and 10s were the standard for bowhunter and compound shooters, he liked the idea of being competitive with scores outside of the gold ring. Furthermore, Nick says that he enjoys shooting barebow because he is able to see how he is improving over time.

After his first year, Nick explains that a combination of COVID and other activities made it more challenging for him to come to the field regularly. Despite this, Nick has fond memories of the club, especially at team dinners where he could celebrate and bond with his teammates after tournaments. Some of Nick’s favorite memories with the club were spending time with his family and group events with multiple families.

After graduating, Nick is planning on moving to Carlsbad for his job at ThermoFisher, where he will be working on the company’s data architecture. We want to congratulate Nick on his accomplishments and wish him luck on his future professional career!

Matthew Oh

Matthew Oh

Computer Science

Warren College

Senior Nickname: McMatthew

2022-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Matthew joined SGA during the Spring of 2022 and made a majority of his memories with the club in his senior year. Matthew’s first exposure to archery was years ago at a summer camp, but didn’t continue pursuing it until he came to UCSD. He had originally found out about the club at the 2021-2022 school year’s workshops but was apathetic at first continuing his time shooting. Luckily he would continue his archery journey with the club during the 2022-2023 school year where he would strive and work hard to become a competitive team member for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.

During his time with SGA, one of Matthew’s most memorable (for better or for worse) moments was the trip to Sacramento for the West Regional Outdoor Collegiate Championship. During the trip, fellow archer and senior Shane Jost’s birthday had been incorrect on one of his documents leading to complications at the airport. Not only that, when some of the team dined at a Denny’s: Matthew and fellow club member Randy Duong became trapped within the bathroom when the door wouldn’t open. Other strange and coincidental occurrences included, Matthew’s visit to Sacramento was a strange one and he currently holds no desire to return any time soon.

However not all of Matthew’s time with SGA has been marked with torment. Although the archery club is where Matthew had honed his skills as an archer, it’s also where he made some great friends too. Matthews' favorite part of the club was the people: having made friends like fellow seniors Tiffany Lin and Shane Jost just to name a couple. Getting to know everyone was one of the greatest parts of Matthew’s time with the club. Whether it was talking on the field, going to catch Pokémon in Pokémon Go with friends, or at competitions across the state: Matthew’s time with SGA was only enhanced by those he spent time with.

Matthew now plans on looking for a job and whilst still residing in San Diego. All the while, he commented that he might return to the field as a community member to shoot more with the club. We wish the best of luck with Matthew, and hope we see him on the field once more sometime soon.

Chris Cardenas

Chris Cardenas

History

Revelle College

Senior Nickname: SGA Drip Model

2022-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Chris transferred from MSJC to UCSD in Fall 2021. He heard of SGA through a friend teaching archery at a summer camp but couldn’t attend a workshop. The following year one of his roommates knew a friend going to one of the SGA workshops and invited him to participate. From then on he became an active club member throughout the 2022-2023 academic year being on the team for both outdoor and indoor.

During his time with SGA, Chris has made many memories. One of his best was the indoor team qualifications, where he made it in at the very very last qualifier with an exact score of 150 shooting Olympic Recurve. With him barely sliding in with a 3, miss and 8 on the last end. This kick started his one and only year shooting with the archery team. His worst memory was during West Regionals at Sacramento, where he missed during his one arrow shoot off. This didn’t stop him as he went to CA State Outdoors after graduating to make it up along with other tournaments.

Chris loved the club as he enjoys making and shooting with friends, a great way to relax… and meet some interesting people. He thinks that more people should do this sport with a club since archery skill isn’t a requirement. “When you let go of a shot and it feels wrong, but you hit a 10 or 9, because that sums up archery. If you can do everything bad and do good, or vice versa. It just goes to show how little control you have over the arrow.”

Chris plans on becoming a history teacher in his hometown. He’s entering a teaching credential program at CSUSB after graduation. We’re sure that he’ll be a great teacher and wish him and his future students the best.