Things definitely look different for The Vegas Shoot at the South Point Casino this year, but we all knew that was going to be the case. The bright side is that we were able to actually pull off an in-person event at all.
Roughly 260 archers made their way to Las Vegas to compete in this year's Vegas Shoot Championship, and Day 1 did not disappoint. There were 42 archers who cleaned round 1 of the shoot, with some surprising front runners.
After Round 1 we had the following perfect scores:
35 Compound Open
1 Compound Female
2 Championship Young Adult
1 Recurve Male
3 Compound Senior
A couple of exciting highlights include:
Steven Marsh outlasted the other 41 archers in the Daily 300 Shoot-Off. After the field of 42 quickly wound down to two archers, Steven Marsh and Jeff Raney shot several more rounds, but Marsh came out the champion and took home a cash prize of $2,500.
Brady Ellison walked away with another perfect 300 round in the Recurve Division, extending his streak, incredibly, to 4 perfect rounds at the Vegas Shoot.
The lone female standing in the Compound Female Division is 13-year old Liko Arreola from Makawao, Hawaii. Liko, coming off of a perfect 900 in the NFAA's Rushmore Rumble, shot a perfect 300 and 26 Xs in Round 1 of the Vegas Shoot. Liko decided to shoot in the Women's Open Division just for the extra challenge, and it looks to be paying off for her so far.
Additionally, 19 archers from Break The Barriers Archery, the largest inclusive archery program in the United States dedicated to driving awareness about equality for veterans and adults with varying abilities, made their way to the Championship Event from Fresno, California to compete in the Open Division.
The nightcap for Day 1 was the BTB Pro-Am event which paired up BTB archers with Professional Archers in a shoot-off for cash prizes for the top 4 teams.
Along with the shoot-off, attendees were witness to a recognition ceremony for retired Viet Nam Veteran, John Raya, who received the B2B Heroic Military Award for his war-time service in the Marines. John has never been formally recognized by the U.S. Government for his service.