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Colorado Springs, CO — USA Shooting’s International Shooting Park, home to the world’s best shotgun team, will be abuzz in activity throughout the month of June. The USA Shooting National Championships get underway tomorrow (Tuesday, June 4) in Colorado Springs, Colorado with Men’s and Women’s Trap.
USA Shooting welcomes in summer with 23 straight days of shotgun activity as athletes compete on the national stage in anticipation of the upcoming Junior World Cup, Pan American Games, World Championships and 2020 Olympic Team Trials later this year. National Championships in Men’s and Women’s Trap will be contested June 4-8 followed by the National Junior Olympic Shooting Championships (NJOSC) in those same events June 11-12. Skeet Nationals will take place June 16-19, with NJOSC Skeet competition concluding the shotgun summer splash June 22-23. Separate preview press releases will follow for NJOSC Trap competition (June 10), Skeet Nationals (June 14) and Skeet NJOSC (June 21).
After unusually late competition in 2018, USA Shooting’s National Championships for Shotgun returns to its more traditional early summer format. Looking to reclaim her top podium position will be Ashley Carroll (Solvang, California), who had to settle for bronze last year after winning the title the previous three years. She’s glowing after earning a bronze medal at the recent World Cup match in Changwon, South Korea and, more importantly, securing that coveted Olympic quota for her team. Last week, she was named to Team USA for the upcoming Pan American Games and will be making her first Pan Am Games appearance in Lima, Peru.
Last year’s medalists will provide plenty of resistance including reigning National Champion Aeriel Skinner (Jackson, California) and runner-up Emma Williams (Savannah, Tennessee). Competition will be fierce when you include Carroll’s Pan Am Games teammate Rachel Tozier (Liberty, Missouri) and trap stalwart Kayle Browning (Wooster, Arkansas). Tozier finished second to Carroll at the recent Spring Selection Match in Tucson, Arizona, while Browning had finished runner-up to Carroll during each of her previous title runs and has medaled seven times at Nationals since 2009. Also, look for the return of three-time Olympian and two-time Olympic bronze medalist Corey Cogdell-Unrein (Eagle River, Alaska) after the birth of her first child back in April.
Reigning Junior National Champion in Women’s Trap is 18-year-old Victoria Hendrix (Glendale, Arizona) Runner-up 15-year-old Ryann Phillips (Gail, Texas) and bronze medalist and recent high school graduate Heather Broski (Spring Hill, Tennessee) will be looking to try and advance up the podium. Faith Pendergrass (Valley Springs, California) won the junior event at the 2019 Spring Selection and will be among the contenders as will other spring podium finishers Carey Garrison (Crossville, Tennessee) and Nicole Manhave (Longview, Texas).
After graduation from Martin Methodist College and an intense pre-Nationals training routine on-going in Colorado Springs, Caleb Lindsey (Spring Hill, Tennessee) is ready to try and defend the national title he earned in 2018. He’ll compete in his first World Cup event later this summer, but before that he’ll tend to the business at hand and try to stave off an onslaught of clay target perfectionists. You have to go back six years to find the last time someone repeated as national champion in Men’s Trap. That person is a strong favorite to be in contention come Friday as well and that’s Brian Burrows (Fallbrook, California), the 2018 bronze medalist who won three titles in four years between 2012 and 2015. Others gunning for Lindsey will be Burrows’ Pan Am Games teammate Derek Haldeman (Sunbury, Ohio), 2018 runner-up Roe Reynolds (Quitman, Arkansas) five-time Olympian and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas) and National Junior Champion Dale Royer (Jackson, Montana).
With Royer’s exit from the junior ranks, look for Reynolds to have a say in the junior proceedings as well having finished as the silver medalist at last year’s nationals as well as the 2019 Spring Selection Match. Alaska representatives Steven Brown and Grayson Davey are likely to figure into the mix as well based on their performances at the Spring Selection where they finished first and third, respectively. Additionally, 2018 Junior World Championships silver medalist Logan Lucas (Pacific, Missouri) will be fighting to regain that podium feeling.
Haldeman and Carroll will be the duo to beat in Mixed Team with strong contention coming from the Burrows/Browning mix as well. This romantic couple clicks on the shotgun range together and they’ve shown that recently with a second-place finish in Changwon while earning a bronze medal at the 2017 World Championships. Burrows and Browning earned a World Cup silver medal earlier this year in Acapulco, Mexico. Other top Mixed Team pairings will include defending National Champions Eller and Skinner and 2019 Spring Selection Match bronze medalists Davey and Julia Stallings (Rossville, Tennessee). Also in the mix will be 2018 World Cup Tucson gold medalists Cogdell-Unrein and Jake Wallace (Castaic, California). They finished as bronze medalists at the 2018 Nationals and as silver medalists at the 2018 Summer Selection Match.
USA Shooting National Championships TRAP SCHEDULE: