SPORTS
Sears earns two medals at world archery field championships
After a week of intense competition, facing the world’s best archers in the mountains of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Montague County’s own Connor Sears came away from the World Archery Field Championships with a team gold and an individual silver medal.
The Gold-Burg High School senior and the son of Dr. David and Pamela Sears was captain of the Team USA junior men’s team after qualifying for and finishing first back in June at the team trials in Darrington, WA.
Just making the team was an important milestone in Sears career after just missing out the previous year. At 17 years old, Sears was one of the youngest competitors and he was competing in the 18-20 junior division.
Field archery takes place in the mountains, requiring archers to have the adaptability to shoot at targets from extreme angles and weather conditions.
At this course, they had quite a ways hike up a mountain where they shot up a ski jump that has been used in the Olympics, with the targets getting farther and steeper as they shot.
Sears was part of a three man team representing the USA against teams from Romania, Great Britain, Sweden, Slovenia and from the host country Italy. Sears shoots a compound bow while his two teammates shot a recurve and barebow.
After a few days of competition, the junior men’s team total score of 2,033 was second to Italy. This meant Team USA got the second seed in the tournament portion and got a first round bye.
In the semi-finals Sears and his teammates easily won 59-50 against Slovenia to qualify for the gold medal match against Italy.
Against Italy, Team USA trailed at the end of every pass except the one that counted. They trailed 11-10 after the first shot, 24-21 after the second and 37-36 heading into the final target.
Fortunately, Italy’s final archer missed the target as Sears and his teammates pulled out the 45-44 win for the gold medal to erupted cheers from the crowd and chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!.” Sears helped anchor his team throughout the match, shooting an almost perfect 23 out of 24 points.
“It was an awesome moment,” Sears said. “When he missed, we just went ballistic and it felt like the greatest moment in the world.”
Sears’ competition was not done though. He qualified individually as well, and faced off against an Austrian in the semifinals.
Read the full story in the weekend edition of The Bowie News.
The Nocona Lady Indians beat Saint Jo at home on Saturday morning.
The Lady Indians won 16-1 after four innings due to run-rule against the smaller school.
Nocona was coming off a competitive loss at Collinsville earlier in the week while the Lady Panthers were hoping to compete after a busy week of their athletes doing everything else besides just softball.
The Lady Indians easily won the first matchup between the teams in March, 19-2 and it was more of the same on Saturday.
Saint Jo struck first to start the game off well. Jordyn O’Neal hit a one out single. Krista Reeves followed with a walk after O’Neal had stolen second base and had advanced to third thanks to an error trying to throw her out. A wild pitch then allowed her to score to put the Lady Panthers up 1-0.
The lead did not last long. Nocona’s first two batters drew walks which set up Abby Hill to drive them both in with a single to right field.
Despite giving up a single and a walk later in the inning, Saint Jo’s defense did not allow another run. A line out and groundout to the shortstop while picking off a runner attempting to steal got the Lady Panthers out of the inning unscarred.
The Lady Indians led 2-1.
That was about as competitive as it got. In the second inning, Nocona’s bats got going. Two singles and a hit batter loaded the bases up with no outs.
Reagan Phipps drew a walk that drove in a run. Hill hit another two RBI single. Skye Kirby followed with a two RBI double.
After the first out, Allie Sutton drove in one run with a single. There was a fly out for out two, before a runner came in to score after a passed ball. Finally, an error allowed two more runs to score on the base paths.
Nocona had scored nine runs and led 11-1 to break the game open heading into the third inning.
Taylor Patrick hit a double, with O’Neal and Reeves following with singles. Unfortunately for Saint Jo, Patrick was thrown out before the hits attempting to steal a base so the Lady Panthers scored no runs from this.
The Lady Indians kept pouring on the runs. Two singles and a walk loaded the bases up with no outs. Tinley Cable then hit an RBI single. Shelby Swell was hit by a pitch that drove in another run.
After two strikeouts, Evelyn Marquez drove in two more runs on a double to put Nocona up 15-1, coming up one run short of ending the game early.
The Lady Indians scored that one run in the fourth inning. After Phipps drew a leadoff walk, Hill hit a triple that drove her in to end the game.
Nocona won 16-1.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
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