Kaufhold, Quiocho added to 2025 Champions list
- Mar 9, 2025
- 2 min read
The competitions for Recurve Female and Compound Young Adult were settled on the Planet Hollywood stage before the compound open event.
All Vegas ties must be settled by a shoot-off – that's the rule. In the Young Adult competition, for archers 15-17 years old, Jacob Merkel and Caleb Quiocho fought it out after tying on 899 after three days of competition. Quiocho took the title on the 2nd end, when scoring moved to the inner ten ring, with a perfect 30 versus Merkel's 28.
It was Quiocho's 2nd win in a row – he won in the same category in 2024, age 15, one of a long list of archery medals the Californian has been picking up since he was nine years old. "It feels amazing, there's been a lot of sacrifices, a lot of hard work gone into this so I'm really happy to do it. God bless everybody that helps me in this journey," he said.
Olympic bronze medallist Casey Kaufhold took her second Vegas recurve title beating France's Victoria Sebastian after three ends of shooting. "It felt really good. I knew I just needed to make one good shot at a time and I tried not to look at my opponent's target," said Kaufhold. "I was just kind of staying in my bubble, focusing on myself and I shot that last arrow and I heard somebody in the background go "yup" and I just knew." "I've been working really hard this indoor season shooting the most arrows I've ever shot, shooting the best scores I've ever shot in practice and so to apply it to a competition and come away with the win feels really good." It was Kaufhold's first shootoff win, after taking the title outright on score in 2022. These two competitions were the last Championship titles awarded before the final Compound Open shootdown on Sunday, with several more decided on Saturday. There was also an eleven way shoot-off for the places in the Championship Compound Female category won by Gracen Fletcher on Saturday, contested with a who's-who of the best female compound archers in the world. The second and third places eventually went to Paige Pearce and Ella Gibson respectively. Follow @TheVegasShoot on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for the latest updates.
This is exciting news regarding Kaufhold and Quiocho! Slope Run I'm curious, how do you see their additions impacting the overall dynamics of the 2025 Champions list? Are there specific challenges they might face ahead?
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That's a great recap of the competition! It's always exciting to see the shoot-offs and close finishes. Congratulations to Quiocho and Kaufhold on their wins.
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