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.
Nocona got its new press box into place this week at Jack Crane Stadium. The old press box, which was in place for more than 60 years, was taken out in early June and moved to Indian Valley Raceway. The new press box was by the Southern Bleacher Company out of Graham. Athletic Director Black Crutsinger said they looked at a lot of press boxes and decided they liked the one at Lindsay High School and went with that model. Sean Hutson operated the crane from the Hurd Crane Service that put the press box up for Nocona.
Sunset native Cason Richey (right) and his team roping partner Beldon Cox from Weatherford repeated as the International Finals Youth Rodeo champions last weekend at Shawnee, OK. Richey and Cox won the previous year and were able to complete the repeat by catching three steers in a combined time of 16.6 seconds. Richey is expected to compete attend Texas Tech University this fall and compete on the rodeo team.
The Chisholm Trail Youth Rodeo had its awards ceremony this week, giving out plaques and buckles to the top competitors throughout the summer season.
There were four age categories with five events to compete in for the young athletes.
Along with the best results in each event, at the end the overall best cowboy and cowgirl in each age division was awarded as well.
The lead line division, in which an adult helps the young competitors, saw Rylee Stewart win the first in poles, barrel racing and mystery event on her way to win top cowgirl.
Hattie Snow got the fastest time in the flags event and Lany Shupak got the fastest goat time. Riggin Bishop got named the top cowboy in the division.
In the eight-and-under division, Whitley Goins won the top cowgirl and Trell Carpenter won top cowboy. Goins got the fastest times in barrel racing, flags and mystery event. Carpenter got the fastest time in poles and goats.
In the 9-12 age division, Sage Keck won the top cowgirl while Chisum Carpenter won the top cowboy. Keck got the fastest times in four of the five divisions. Only Layna Taylor getting the fastest goat time prevented her from winning in a clean sweep.
In the 13-18 age division, Tess Egenbacher won the top overall cowgirl award.
Kiley McCracken won both the barrel racing and flags event. Emma Strahan won the poles and mystery event. Hadlee Bryan won the goats event.
There was no top overall cowboy in the age division.
To see the times for the winners of each event in all four age categories along with pictures of all of the top cowboys and cowgirls, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
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