Nearly 700 archers descended on Newberry this past weekend for the 16th Annual Easton Foundations Gator Cup, with a full slate of compound and recurve archers, including all Team USA members from the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Besides a potential gold at the Gator Cup, the tournament also serves as one of four events in the U.S. Archery Team Qualifier Series. The top-seeded archers from these four events compete for Team USA in the following year.
The Gator Cup finished Sunday with several Florida archers picking up hardware.
Mark Williams, Fort Myers, won the recurve 50+ men division, defeating Ali Gungoraydinoglu, Weston, in the final match. Williams also set a national record during qualifications on Saturday.
Patty Hoppe, Ocala, earned second in compound 50+ women, with Tamara Fontenot finishing first.
Paralympian Tracy Otto, Tampa, also got a silver finish in W1 Open. She had a big 2024 with her Paralympic debut and earning a spot on BBC’s Top 100 women of the year.
Florida’s Melissa McAvoy won the 50+ barebow women division, followed by fellow Floridians Tracey Francis and Michelle O’Donnell in second and third.
Finally, Luke Shaeffer squeezed out a tight victory in the U21 fixed pins division, just one point over Joshua Kiper.
But Floridians weren’t the only ones hitting bullseyes.
Mike Schloesser, from the Netherlands, shot a 718 during qualifying for the compound men to tie the world record. A perfect score is 720—all 10s after shooting 72 arrows. USA Archery reports that Schloesser had tied the world record before. He previously hit the 718 mark in 2021 and 2023.
Schloesser topped off the weekend with gold in the compound men division. Liko Arreola claimed gold for compound women.
The compound division victories come during an exciting time for the sport. On April 9, the International Olympic Committee announced that compound archery will be added as an Olympic sport for the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
“There’s going to be so many athletes working so hard over the next few years and I can’t believe that our Olympic dreams have finally been made possible,” top compound archer James Lutz told USA Archery.
Recurve women had a tight field heading into the finals, with two points separating the top three seeds. Paris Olympians Catalina GNoriega and Casey Kaufhold tied with 656 for the second seed, leaving Akshara Vijay as the No. 1 seed with 658.
GNoriega ended on top of the field, defeating Alexandria Zuleta-Visser in the final round. Kaufhold ended in third, and Vijay got eliminated in the quarterfinals.
In recurve men, five-time Olympian Brady Ellison also got dropped during the quarterfinals. Ellison entered the elimination round as the No. 1 seed, ending qualifications 10 points ahead of second.
Campbell Affleck, who entered as the eighth seed, defeated Ellison before continuing for a bronze finish.
Trenton Cowles won gold for the division, and Christian Stoddard earned silver.
The next United States Archery Team Qualifier Series will by the 2025 Easton Foundations SoCal Showdown in Chula Vista, California.
