Tuesday, June 26, 2007

2007 West Coast Championship Recap

Twenty-four shooters from seven states (AZ, CA, ID, IN, OR, WA, & WY) came together for five days to fire 193 entries in the seventh annual IHMSA West Coast Championship. While the number of shooters/entries was down somewhat from past years, the competition was hot!

Tuni Hicks was the Air Pistol Unlimited Any Sight champion beating out International class shooter Paul Hoadley. Tuni was also in the running for High Lady, but Maggie Fouts shot two perfect 60x60 scores to win that title. Other AIR winners were Steve Ware (Production & Unlimited Standing), Gordy Prudencio (Standing & Unlimited Standing Iron Sight), and Paul Hoadley (Unlimited).

Ted Zysk traveled from Indiana and went home with the Big Bore Production and Revolver titles shooting perfect 60’s in both. Joe Cullison took the most trophies home by both volume and weight. In Big Bore alone, he was match champion in Standing, Unlimited, and Unlimited Standing. His win in Unlimited was an outstand duel in the shoot offs with Jerry Ray. It went 15 shots with Joe finally cleaning the last five to take the title. Joe’s performance was enough to give him the Four Gun Aggregate and Standing Aggregate in Big Bore. Joe was also our match champion in Field Pistol and Field Pistol Production Any Sight as well as taking the Field Pistol Aggregate. That was a hard fought contest in both Field Pistol entries between Joe and Larry Hixson. Joe took the Production title outright by only one target, and unfortunately Larry as not available to shoot off the tie in Production Any Sight.

Jerry Ray was our champion in Big Bore Unlimited Any Sight. He also shot two perfect 60’s in Unlimited Half Scale and Unlimited Any Sight Half Scale to take those titles and the Half Scale Aggregate trophy.

Unlimited One-Fifth Scale competition is always tough. Jim Harris was our Any Sight champion with a perfect 60, but Jerry Ray was hard on his heels with a 59. Eric King and Jerry were tied in Unlimited with a pair of 56’s. Eric whacked 4 of the little shoot off targets to Jerry’s 3 to take the title home to the Bay Area.

Joe Cullison continued his winning ways over on the Small Bore range taking home the Production championship as well as Standing and Unlimited Standing. Those wins gave him the Four Gun Aggregate as well as the Standing Aggregate.

Eric King was our Small Bore Revolver and Unlimited champion. Eric and Jerry Ray were dueling it out over the Unlimited title with Eric taking the win two shoot off targets to Jerry’s one. But, Jerry turned around and took the Unlimited Any Sight title in a hotly contested race with Jerry, Jim Harris, Gene Grant, Don Ritz, Maggie Fouts, and Doug Forsyth all tied with perfect 60’s. But Jerry’s shoot off performance gave him the win in the end.

Iron Man, High Senior, and High Lady are always sought after trophies. Joe Cullison was the Iron Man winner with an excellent eight gun aggregate of 426. As mentioned earlier, Maggie Fouts was our High Lady. High Senior is an award that is determined by the scores and difficulty of the event. The Revolver discipline has traditionally been considered one of the more difficult Freestyle events. Few would argue that the newly adopted Unlimited One-Fifth discipline with those runt-like targets using iron sights is the most difficult of all Freestyle events. Given his outright wins in both the Small Bore Revolver and Unlimited One-Fifth scale events as well as his win over Jerry Ray in Small Bore Unlimited, Eric King was awarded High Senior of the 2007 West Coast Championship.

There were many memorable moments and high points of the match. Many shooters shot a leg into the next higher class. Steve Parsons jumped class in Field Pistol. David Lehman’s red dot broke at a prior match, and he came with a new one. He was able to get rough sight settings the day prior to the match and shot a Big Bore Unlimited Any Sight 60 plus two shoot off targets. And, he did it with a Production legal BF in .357 Maximum.

We did make a few changes this year. Heavy equipment was rented to dress the turkey & ram backstops improving target visibility. The participants noticed the difference immediately. We also required all UAS shooters (any discipline) to shoot five shoot off targets if he/she fired a 60 any time during the day. This is the second year for that change. Shooters noticed the difference required to break ties on the last day and appreciated that change as well. We promise to continue work on target visibility, and you should see an improvement in 2008. Also, we may add the five shoot off target requirement to any Unlimited 60. I would like participant input on that change any time during this year.

It was wonderful to see old friends from around the country. Thanks to all who traveled many miles and gave up family time to shoot with us. Special thanks goes to Steve Parsons, Bret Stuntebeck, and Doug Forsyth for coming from Washington early and helping to prepare the range. Also, thanks to John Fouts for doing all the pre-registration work and keeping the stats throughout the match and to his wife Maggie for keeping the scorecards up to date. Thanks to Tom Hull, Paul Hoadley, and Charlie Dean for doing hours of labor getting the ranges set up and/or torn down. And the Good Lord knows that Don and Fay Ritz are the true workers each year at this match. Don for his many hours of carrying and welding targets and range maintenance and Fay for her five days of running the Small Bore/Field Pistol line. You are all very dear friends. We look forward to seeing everyone June 17-21, 2008!


Video of the match is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW833jO-EDg. Photos are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/19Turkeys/2007WestCoastChampionship?authkey=g6IRyYEZIww

We hope to see some new shooters in 2008. Thanks to all who support this match.