CHULA VISTA, Cali. – Brady Ellison, Casey Kaufhold, James Lutz and Alexis Ruiz will arrive in Medellin, Colombia for next week's World Cup Stage #3 with a spring in their collective step after all triumphed in their respective categories at the SoCal Showdown on Saturday.
Ellison took gold in the recurve men, despite managing a miss during qualification a day earlier. He said of his success, “It’s good to pick up a win this weekend, especially how I shot my bow yesterday (Friday).
“Yesterday was impressively bad. I’m not going to blame the wind on me missing the bale for the first time in 15 years. That was all on me but I came back today and shot really well, so it was good.”
In the recurve women Kaufhold, on the other hand, was consistent throughout as she added the SoCal Showdown to the Arizona Cup and Gator Cup titles she has already won this year in the United States Archery Team (USAT) Qualifier Series. The final event in the series is the Buckeye Classic in Dublin, OH from July 28-30.
Ellison and Kaufhold came into this event as defending champions, as did James Lutz in the compound men, Marcus Cooley in the barebow men and Susan Bock in the recurve 50+ women. All reclaimed the crowns captured 12 months ago.
Alexis Ruiz took gold in the compound women category, defeating Paige Pearce. Ruiz is returning to form this year having placed archery on the backburner as she focused on her studies.
“It feels great to have finished nursing school,” she admitted. “Not being able to practice as much was kind of hard, but I really think it’s showing now that I’m done. I’ve had a great season so far and I’m excited to see what the future holds.”
Elsewhere, there were wins for Ron Gosnell (recurve 50+ men), Kenneth Brunko (compound 50+ men), Tamara Fontenot (compound 50+ women), Sierra Nation (barebow women), Jason Wright (barebow 50+ men), Lisa Sullivan (barebow 50+ women) and Sheri-Byrne Haber (compound women open).
Qualification took place on Saturday for the U18 and U21 divisions. Among the highlights came in the recurve U21 women where Gator Cup winner Samantha Ensign claimed top seeding for Sunday’s elimination rounds.
Other top seeds include Jacob Robinson (recurve U21 men), Pierce McAdam (recurve U18 men), Riley Tateyama (recurve U18 women), Eli Bartron (compound U21 men), Sydney Sullenberger (compound U21 women), Aiden Stephenson (compound U18 men) Kaylee Gurney (compound U18 women), Andrew Van Why (barebow U21 men), Erin Heyob (barebow U21 women), Bryce Henak (barebow U18 men) and Elizabeth Howe (barebow U18 women).
The U21 gold medal matches in recurve and compound will be broadcast live on Sunday from 2pm local time on USA Archery’s YouTube and Facebook channels, with commentator George Tekmitchov – a veteran of six Olympic Games – on the call.
You can keep up-to-date with all the latest scores and results on Between Ends, and there will be photo galleries from each day on USA Archery’s SmugMug account.
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