Archery champions and rising stars shine at Texas Shootout

There were some close matches and one finals showstopper in Sunday's competition, which featured USA Archery Resident Athletes and Olympic medallists winning several key recurve matches, as well as a perfect score of 150 in the compound men's gold medal match by Reo WILDE.
  Compound Men Reo WILDE just cannot be kept out of the finals this year; it was no surprise to fans to see him in yet another gold medal matchup. With one end to go, WILDE had an eight point lead of 120-112 over his opponent Thomas GOMEZ. WILDE finished with three tens for a perfect 150 points to edge out GOMEZ. With a clean score of 150, WILDE clinched the gold, giving THOMAS the silver.   In the bronze medal match Rodger WILLETT Jr. had a 10-point lead going into the final end. He led Hunter BARTHELS, recently returned from the World Archery Field Championships, with a 120-110. In the final end both archers shot a 28, bringing the final score to 148-138 in favour of WILLETT.   Compound Women Jamie VAN NATTA shot against Erika ANSCHUTZ in the gold medal match, making this contest a showdown between two of the world's best compound archers. After four ends VAN NATTA led 117-115, needing to shoot strong in the final end in order to hold off a tough opponent in ANSCHUTZ. VAN NATTA closed with a perfect 30 points to secure a 3-point victory of 147-144.   Brittany LORENTI faced Diane WATSON in the bronze medal match. With only one end to go the score was tied at 116-116. WATSON shot a 29 to LORENTI's 27 to give WATSON a 2-point victory at 145-143. With a strong qualification score on Saturday and solid match play wins on Sunday, LORENTI had a positive outlook despite the loss to WATSON: "I worked really hard this summer and I'm finally back to feeling like me... It feels awesome."   Recurve Men Nick KALE met Jeremiah CUSICK in the bronze medal match. After four sets the score was 5-3 in favour of CUSICK. Despite strong shooting from KALE, CUSICK pulled of the bronze medal win 7-3, clinching his first-ever podium finish in the senior men's event.   Brady ELLISON and Jake KAMINSKI faced each other in a heated gold medal match. After four sets the score was tied at 4-4. In the fifth set the archers tied, bringing the score to 5-5 and forcing a shoot-off. In the shoot-off both archers shot a 9. After the judges measured to see which arrow was closest to the centre, no determination could be made, forcing another shoot-off arrow.   KAMINSKI said: "Literally the exact same spot, you couldn't have placed it closer." In the second shoot-off KAMINSKI shot a 9 but it was ELLISON who would come away with the win by shooting a 10, taking the Texas Shootout title.   Recurve Women Three-time Olympian Jennifer HARDY (NICHOLS) took an early lead and never let up, winning the gold medal match over 2012 Olympic Team Alternate Heather KOEHL, 6-0. KOEHL is a recent graduate of the Resident Athlete programme, having recently left the Olympic Training Center to pursue her education.   The bronze medal match between Erin MICKELBERRY and Mackenzie BROWN was tied 2-2 after two sets. Then BROWN began to pull ahead, taking the third set, tying the fourth and winning the fifth outright to take the match, 7-3. This is BROWN's second senior podium finish in 2012, following a silver medal win at SoCal Showdown in August.   When asked about the strong finishes from archers in the Resident Athlete programme, including podium finishes from ELLISON, KAMINSKI, CUSICK, KOEHL and BROWN, Guy KRUEGER, USA Archery Assistant Head Coach, commented: "I think we are starting to see a lot more depth; a lot of our athletes are taking turns at winning events."   Junior archers were ranked with senior archers for Sunday's elimination round match play, while cadet archers competed in an elimination round on Saturday that did not count for US Archery Team ranking purposes, but gave the archers valuable match play experience.     Photos from the event are available on USA Archery's Facebook page; for complete scores and live results, visit http://ianseo.net/Details.php?toId=273.   MEDIA CONTACT: Teresa IACONI tiaconi@usarchery.org  +1 (860) 904 0497    Edited by World Archery Communication