SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - In the compound finals at the Salt Lake City leg of the Archery World Cup today the U.S. was on deck for two bronze finals and was victorious in both matches.
The compound women's squad of World Champion and World Cup Final Champion Jamie Van Natta (Toledo, Ohio), World Champion Erika Jones (Owasso, Oklahoma) and World Cup Rookie Cassidy Cox (Albuquerque, New Mexico) took to the field as the first match of the day.
They started out down three to Chinese Taipei after the first end of six arrows - a large deficit, but able to come back. In the second end, Jones shot a 10 and turned around surprised - she had picked up her backup bow and shot it instead. She switched back to the bow she had intended to shoot and drilled two nines.
To the appeal of the crowd, she switched bows again and nailed the ten ring as teammates Van Natta and Cox threw strong shots down range, swinging the lead to their favor in the third end when Taipei dropped an arrow in the six ring. Up one point headed into the final end, the U.S. opened with a perfect 30 to Taipei's 29 and then followed with two Xs and a nine for a near perfect end and a wide margin win 223-218.
Shooting team rounds at a World Cup event is different than competing in individual eliminations in national competitions for many reasons. Among them is the mentality that you are shooting together, and to represent your country.
"I feel more comfortable in a team round," shared Van Natta, "because you're completely supported by the people around you, especially here on home turf, the audience was totally behind us. So for me, it's less stressful than individual matches because it feels like there's no one against you, everyone is with you."
"I completely agree," added Jones, "it helps to have great teammates because if you don't shoot great arrows, then your teammates pick you up. All the pressure is not on you because having good teammates brings you up."
The trio laughed between sets of arrows and kept spirits high throughout the match. In the year of her World Cup circuit debut 19-year old Cox is making a big impression in a historically powerful squad. "It's really cool shooting with Jamie and Erika because obviously they've shot together for many years," added Cox, "and we were talking about this earlier, how Erika always shoots last and Jamie shoots first when they're together so I fit in well in the middle and it was really cool shooting with experienced archers like they are!"
In Deaton's match later in the day, he kept the crowd on their toes. With the first 9 arrows, Deaton drilled ten after ten for a perfect 90 as his opponent, Mexico's Rodolpho Gonzalez held an 86. Then, Deaton opened with a seven followed by two nines and the score swung in favor of Gonzalez by a single point. In the final three arrows, Deaton was back and loosed three straight tens, two of which landed squarely in the X ring, and the match came to a 145-145 tie. For the one arrow shoot off, Gonzalez shot first: 10. With the pressure on, Deaton was cool and calm and dialed in on the X ring to take a decisive victory and the bronze win.
"I never want it to be that interesting or come down to the wire like that, but I put on a good show with it and came up with the W so that's usually the most important part," shared Deaton. "I had put the previous nine arrows before that seven in so I knew the shots were breaking good and I luckily had enough of a buffer that I was able to take two shots to reset and take time in between ends to get back to what I needed to do and luckily he left the door open with one arrow and I was able to capitalize on that."
Deaton added: "There were a lot of Mexican fans out there as well as American fans and I think it was a really good match over all. It was something special to have it be the first world cup I've had on home soil and I got a medal."
Tune in tomorrow at www.nbcsports.com/live to watch the recurve finals, where USA will shoot for mixed team bronze, or join us on site where tickets are free and the Archery Festival will feature fun archery games and food trucks galore! Results are available at www.worldarchery.org. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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