RALEIGH, North Carolina - National Champions were crowned today at the 2018 JOAD National Target Championships. After two long days of qualification, archers were seeded for head to head, bracket-style individual elimination matches. Many exciting finals matches ended in incredible shoot offs and close races to the finish.
Local archer from North Carolina, barebow cub Chris Clade scored a new national record in qualification and then smoked straight 6-0 wins to take gold in his division. Clade shared: "I really liked this event. This is basically for fun for me because I like beating people; I'm very competitive. I have wanted to do archery since I was seven and I got my own bow about four months ago." On the keys to his success, Clade added: "My family was supporting me a lot and I had good coaches."
In the biggest division on the field, Trenton Cowles repeated his win and kept his national champion title. "I'm happy that I pulled it together because I took a two week break after SoCal, so to come back and win it again feels so amazing. I'm going to shoot as a senior all next year so this is helping to boost my confidence that I can compete at a high level with amazing competitors. Next year is Olympic Trials so I want to make sure I'm competing against the people I'll be competing against for those Olympic spots."
Makenna Proctor and Hannah Bartos shot a great match for the compound cadet women's gold. In a tough division, Proctor made her first national podium finish at her second ever JOAD Nationals. "That was really difficult but it was so much fun, it was amazing," commented Proctor. "It was great shooting with Hannah, she's such a great competitor and it was a real honor to share the line with her." On dealing with the pressure at this level of competition, Proctor added: "Friends definitely help and it's a lot of mental, getting it back down and getting it up there and just focusing."
Carson Sapp topped the compound junior men's podium with an impressive win and his first outdoor national gold finish. "This is pretty great, I've come close to winning a few tournaments and just fell short so it's good to finally win one," commented Sapp. "I shot well. The wind was a little bit tricky at times, it would stop and go, but I aimed off a bit and paid attention to the wind socks."
On the recurve side, Casey Kaufhold came home with the gold. 14-year old Kaufhold has been competing as a senior all year, despite fitting into the cub age class, and competed as a junior here in Raleigh. "It means a lot to me because I know that I've worked very hard over the past season," commented Kaufhold. "I'm so relieved that all my hard work has paid off. I wanted to compete at JOAD Nationals because it is kind of a warm up for senior nationals in August, so it was the same distance and I thought it would be a good change and a nice chance to shoot again with the old friends I had made in the cadet division who had moved up too."
Complete results from the competition are available here. Tomorrow's events features optional team rounds where over 100 teams will face off in friendly competition. Photos from the event are available here. Follow USA Archery onFacebook, Twitterand Instagramfor more. Join the conversation online with #JOADNationals.
As a reminder, the practice field will be in use for team rounds tomorrow and there will not be any practice targets available.
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