Mason went into this side-pot deal with a commanding lead. But he went out in the first round. Due to approaching weather the first round was shortened to three shots. He had shot three tens, his opponent had hit two tens and one eleven. Logan fought his way through the ranks and won the event and a check for 500.
Mason went into the finals yesterday morning with a ten point lead. He maintained through the first 20 targets. His arrows started hitting low, bow making noise and he completely missed target #23 before discovering his bottom limb was coming apart. One of the other shooters in his peer group offered to let him shoot his bow for target 24-25. He shot a ten and and eleven on those. Very generous of the man to allow Mason to finish the course with his bow. Randy Cooling took Masons limbs with him to ETAR where he will hand deliver them to Black Widow. Hopefully they will repair or replace them. If not, the man looking at them with Mason in the above picture said to send them to him and he will take care of it. He makes a fine bow too and happens to be the man that put Mason out in the side pot shoot. Again, a very generous offer to repair.
As discussed above, in the finals overall, Mason won a second place finish due to bow failure. The man that loaned him the bow to finish the shoot would have made the podium if he had not loaned his bow to Mason to allow him to finish. That’s good sportsmanship.
Matt from Pa edged Logan out of first by one point. Todd from Ny on the 3rd place podium. If there were a fourth place podium… I’d have been sheepishly standing on it. . These fellas shoot bows really well and there is no room for a string of errant shots if you want to win hardware. I did enjoy shooting with them but obviously wish I’d have had my stuff in gear a little better for the finals.
Just one more picture of Mason and Logan and their awards which mirror each other. Both second place finishes in the overall and first place finishes in the Bowhunter Challenge. Those are pretty strong results when it is considered that no one shows up to this level of competition with mediocre ability. Proud of them both but obviously especially so of Mason.