The 2010 Area 1 Championship was my first time shooting this match.  Todd had not shot the match in many years so we decided to go out to Idaho and make a vacation of it.  After shooting the match we spent an awesome week in Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks.

I saw many new faces at the match and had a great squad.  I got to shoot with Nancy Huspek for the first time and really enjoyed her company and watching her shoot her Production gun.  Nancy is a strong competitor and as nice as can be.   She said of the match, “I thought the stages tested all of the different skills.   It was a fun match to shoot and we had a great squad.  I enjoyed it”. 

Although I didn’t get to shoot with Lisa [Munson], I know she shot a very strong match (with two top 10 stage finishes!) and I was glad to have her competition.  Congrats to ALL the lovely ladies who shot this match, especially to fellow high overall ladies Nancy Huspek (Production), Debbie Keehart (Limited) and Teddi Eddington (Revolver). 
 

We arrived late on Thursday after a long day of traveling and only got to walk through a couple of stages due to a huge wind/rain storm that rolled right over the range.  Kudos to all those working the match who basically had to set up all the props all over again.  And the props and stage designs were great…lots of walls and windows, several moving targets, as well as plenty of partial targets and steel.  A big thank-you to all the RO’s, who were fantastic. 

 Personally, I had a bit of a rough start to the match with a slow time on the first stage due to several pick-ups on steel.  My only penalty for the match was on Stage 8, on one of three clamshell targets that were activated simultaneously by a pressure pad.  Although there was plenty of time to get all my hits, feeling a little panic by three targets activated at once rushed one of my shots just over the target. 

I was pleased with my performance on the “quickie” stages, which are not typically my strong suit.  Keeping my concentration and shooting one-for-one on short courses is something I’ve been working on and I was happy to finish strong on those stages.  Surprisingly, my best stage of the match was a very tough strong hand/weak hand Virginia Count stage: Stage 9.  The A-zone only target for the strong/weak hand shooting was at about 14 yards away.  I was at the end of the rotation in the squad and watched everyone have at least one miss. 

We heard from the RO’s that no one had walked away clean yet.  Stand-and-shoots have been my nemesis, especially when strong hand/weak hand is involved, so I was nervous to say the least.   I felt very smooth and had decent times and when we walked down to score, I was proud to see I’d cleaned the stage.  I knew this was big overall and it really boosted my confidence for the rest of the day.  I later found out that I was winning the stage overall in the match, until unfortunately on the last day it was thrown out for reasons I’m not sure of.  I was disappointed to say the least, as it cost me about 40 points overall and 4% of the match winner (Max).  But I still know that I stepped up to the pressure and dominated on the most difficult stage of the match, which feels good.

 I also saw my first Polish Plate Rack, which I have to admit that I chickened out on (along with most of my squad) and shot the plates before activating the rack, which caused the eight plates to spin.  It was still a tough plate rack, with steel hard cover in front.  Most everyone in our squad agreed that ending on this stage (we shot the whole match in one day) was a factor in our decision to shoot the plates static – after a long day, we felt it was the safer choice.  Another of my favorite stages was Stage 11, which was loaded with no-shoots and required precise set-ups. 

 Thanks to the folks at Area 1 for putting on a fun and challenging match.  It was definitely worth the trip from the east coast and we had a blast!

It’s hard for us to believe we could pull it together so fast, but we are up and at ‘em!

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