Foothills Sentry - October 2023

Foothills Sentry Page 14 October 2023 COMMUNITY SPORTS BY CLIFF ROBBINS AND CHAD CLINE Jack Williams took first place and a nice bonus award of $1,500 at the Target Nationals in August. Jack Williams has his sight set on the target. Williams advanced to the Gold Medal match, and won convincingly, 7-1, over Oscar Ticas of El Salvador. This was Williams’ second National Championship Gold Medal at the U.S. Open, as he won in 2020 as well. Andrew Marentes (6) and Rene Coello (right) fight an Imperial Valley player for possession. Marentes came from Canyon High and Coello from Foothill High; both are starters on the Santiago College mens soccer team. Jose Garcia Cruz (10) from San- tiago College dribbles past an Im- perial Valley defender. SCC lost the game, 2-1, in the last minute of play. Ivan Pena, an incoming freshman from Arizona, plays for Santiago Canyon College. Pena gets the shot off for a goal, just as the defender goes for the tackle. Jack Williams shoots his way to No. 1, taking Gold at the U.S. Open Jack Williams, 23, from Or- ange, has been on a worldwide tour since last year, and has risen to be the number one archer in the USA. Williams has been interested in archery since middle school, and by his junior year of high school, moved to Chula Vista to become a resident athlete, living and train- ing full time for the Olympics. He made the USAArchery World Cup Team at 17, and led the 2020 Olympic Team to a 5th place fin- ish at the Games. In Kentucky for the USA Ar- chery Indoor National Champi- onship Finals, he defeated rival Brady Ellison, then ranked U.S. #1, and World #4, for the Gold Medal. Williams has been #2 in the U.S. rankings since 2018, with the exception of 2020 where he finished #1, the only archer since 2008 to hold the #1 rank besides Brady Ellison. His world ranking has been between 5-15 for the past four years, and is currently #11. Last year at the SoCal Show- down in Chula Vista, a USA Ar- chery National Tournament, Wil- liams won a Bronze at the event. During the qualification round, he shot a 668 out of 720 to lead the field. In the semifinals, he lost to U.S. #1 and World #3 ranked ar- cher Brady Ellison. In the Bronze medal match, Williams won 6-0, opening with a perfect 30. In Olympic Recurve archery, ath- letes shoot a qualification round of 72 arrows at a target 122cm in diameter, at a distance of 70 meters. The 10 ring is 12.2cm in diameter, approximately the size of a CD. After qualification, an elimination round of head- to-head matches is held. Match play consists of three shots, for a maximum of 30 points. The archer with the higher score gets 2 points; if they tie, each gets 1 point. The first to 6 points wins. After Chula Vista, Williams left for Medellin, Columbia to compete in the Archery World Cup, where he qualified as #43. In his first match, he upset #22 seed Abdullah Yildirmis of Tur- key. In the second round, he beat Crispin Duenas of Canada, who had upset the #11 seed. In the third round, Williams faced off against Saito Fumiya and pulled off another upset, winning 7-1 with three perfect 30s. In the quarterfinals, Wil- liams faced World #13 Kim Je- deok where his tournament run ended with Williams placing eighth. Williams traveled to Tokyo for a competition, then headed to Berlin for the World Cham- pionships. One week after the World Championships, he was off to Paris, the site of the 2024 Olympic Games. The following week was the U.S. Outdoor Na- tional Championships in Pennsyl- vania. Williams took 5th place at the 139th USAArchery Target Nation- als, which was also Stage 1 of the 2024 Olympic Team Trials, where he placed 4th. Target Nationals is a two-day competition, where ar- chers from all over the world com- pete, shooting four rounds of 36 arrows, 72 each day. The highest score after 144 arrows determines place winners. The Top 16 U.S. archers at Target Nationals quali- fied to compete in Stage 2 of the Olympic Trials. Going into Stage 2, Williams was ranked 4th in the Olympic Trials rankings. The U.S. Open is a single elimi- nation tournament where archers compete head-to-head, shooting three arrows at a time. Seeding for the U.S. Open is based on ranking at Target Nationals. Going in, he was the #5 seed. He advanced to the Gold Medal match, and won 7-1 over Oscar Ticas of El Sal- vador. This was Williams’ second National Championship Gold Medal at the U.S. Open, as he won it in 2020 as well. At Stage 2 of the Olympic Tri- als, the 16 archers competed in head-to-head matches against every other archer. It was a long day, but Williams finished the day second. Coming up: He will represent the U.S. at the Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile this month. Cheyne Pope from El Modena High digs a serve out from the back line. Melanie Tran (20) from El Modena battles the net and scores. El Modena won the game, 3-0. Angelina Solis from El Modena gets over the net for the return.