CHULA VISTA, California – As the sun set on a competition-packed day at the SoCal Showdown, Makenzie Weatherspoon sank her last arrow into the center of her target and proudly whipped her scope off the line.
“I had a rough start but I finished happy, so I’m glad that I was able to come and shoot as a junior because I’ve been shooting the whole season as a senior. I’m just happy I was able to shoot with kids my own age and have some fun,” commented Weatherspoon. The SoCal USAT Qualifier Series event sold out quickly and the compound junior women’s line was stacked with strong competition.
Amidst a strong field, Weatherspoon dominated, topping the compound junior women’s qualification with a 689, 15 points clear the rest of the competition. “I just came into this one wanting to shoot, hopefully break a personal record for scoring and I’ll end up where I’ll end up and have fun with it, and I definitely did do that. I had a lot of fun and I did have my personal record.”
Ashley Kim, who recently brought home her first international hardware from the World Ranking Event in Medellin, Colombia, topped the recurve junior women’s field with a 623, just ahead of Michelle Ahn and Richelle Shim. The three were separated from the rest of the competition by more than 30 points in some stellar performances.
Kim shared: “I feel like every competition is a learning experience and this one helped me realize more things I need to work on and focus on but overall I felt good about the whole day.” Coming off her big international wins, Kim added: “The Colombia trip helped me realize some things I needed to work on and before I came in, I worked on them a lot and it helped me do well here.”
Gabe Anderson once again topped the recurve junior men’s division, scoring a 645, putting him just ahead of Dohyeon Kim and William Lee, while Cooper French had a blowout lead on the compound men’s field, with a stout 706.
Competition resumes tomorrow with senior and masters elimination matches in the morning and juniors in the afternoon. Check out live scores, official photo coverage and tune in for the senior gold medal matches live on Sunday at 1pm PT on USA Archery’s Facebook and YouTube.
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