LAS VEGAS, Nevada. – A former champion returns while other big names will make their debut in the compound men’s division at the 2025 USA Archery Indoor Nationals Final, which takes place inside the Horseshoe Las Vegas Events Center on Wednesday morning. The question for the women's division will be, who can deny Paige Pearce from making it six wins from seven?
Among the eight men competing this year will be James Lutz, Nick Kappers and 2022 champion, Braden Gellenthien. Lutz won gold at the 2024 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final. He also claimed silver at World Cup Stage 2. Kappers was a bronze medalist at World Cup Stage 1 last year.
Kappers qualified as third seed for the 2021 Indoor Nationals Final, which were ultimately canceled due to COVID. He will finally make his Indoor Nationals Final debut four years on, again as the third seed. Lutz has never previously competed in Indoor Nationals before now and arrives in Vegas as the fourth seed.
“I’ve always wanted to shoot this event, but the weekends never really lined up for me,” Lutz said. “This year I was able to make it work and I’m excited to shoot the finals in Vegas. The $8k prize would be a nice little bonus!”
Lutz opens against another debutant in Colton Green, silver medalist in compound men at the 2024 Collegiate 3D Nationals. Kappers faces Roland Deason who is joined in Vegas by defending barebow men’s champion Zackary Bisinger, his colleague at Archery Field & Sports in Altoona, Iowa.
Kappers added, “It’s going to be a fun bracket being stacked with good shooters. Just need to keep my head in the game and try not to make any mistakes.”
Gellenthien is the only former champion of the compound men’s division appearing at the 2025 Indoor Nationals Final. He triumphed in 2022 when defeating Kris Schaff in the gold medal match. The former world number one last appeared in 2023, where he lost to the eventual winner Isaac Sullivan at the first stage. As the seventh seed, he tackles second seed Kyle Douglas first up.
Douglas has not featured at the Indoor Nationals Final since winning bronze in 2022, where he defeated Cousins – the top seed that year – in a one arrow shoot-off. His charge to the gold medal match was halted by the man he will meet on Wednesday morning.
Grady Kane is another making his debut at the Indoor Nationals Final. The U18 compound men’s team bronze medalist from the 2023 World Archery Youth Championships, the 17-year-old from South Dakota faces a familiar face in top seed Sawyer Sullivan. The pair met in the gold medal match at the 2023 Rebel Gear Buckeye Classic, with Sullivan winning 147-144.
Two former winners will be present in the women’s division, top seed and reigning champion Paige Pearce, as well as the 2022 champion, Olivia Dean.
Dean was just 15 when she defeated Alexis Ruiz in the 2022 gold medal match, via a shoot-off. Just three years on, and Dean is an established archer on the world stage, claiming mixed team gold at World Cup Stage 2 last year.
Undoubtedly, though, Pearce remains the one to beat. She has been victorious at five of the last six USA Archery Indoor Nationals Final. She finished fourth in 2022, beaten by Alexis Ruiz in the semifinal and Liko Arreola in the bronze medal match – both went to a shoot-off!
Pearce begins against Cassidy Cox on Wednesday. These two met in the 2019 semifinals of this competition, with Pearce winning 147-145. Cox and Pearce were part of the USA compound women’s team which won gold at the 2019 Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Turkey. Dean faces Toja Ellison, the 2023 silver medalist. Ellison opened the 2023 event with a 147-145 win over the then-defending champion Dean.
Kaylee Gurney may only be 17 yet has qualified for two of the last three, though she has not moved past the quarterfinals. Gurney enjoys a highest-ever seeding of three, and will be seeking to progress as she meets another teenager in Morgan Rives (19), who won gold for William Carey University at the 2024 USA Archery Collegiate 3D Nationals. Gurney took compound U18 women gold at last year’s AAE Arizona Cup and Easton Foundations Gator Cup.
The other quarterfinal match-up brings Abigail Winterton and Chloe Nelsen together. Winterton has this year made the senior USAT for the first time and will make her first appearance at the Indoor Nationals Final. Nelsen, who was crowned 2025 Youth Female Open champion at the Lancaster Archery Classic at the end of January, was just 13 when she competed at the 2024 edition.
Elimination rounds through the bronze medal matches will be followed by live coverage of the gold medal matches on USA Archery's YouTube channel, starting at 10am PT.-2.jpg)
