The Lancaster Archery Classic is one of the year’s most anticipated indoor tournaments. This year in the Open Pro division, Elite Archery’s Jacob Marlow took first place shooting his Elite Victory X.
Holding steady through Friday’s qualifications, Marlow shot into the top 32 elimination matches on Saturday. Ultimately, Marlow earned a third seed in the final eight to compete in the shoot down Sunday.
With a $30,000 payout on the line, Marlow defeated two fellow shooters before meeting No. 1 seed Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands in the gold medal match. Hitting closer and closer to center after each shot, Marlow sunk a center-X to Schloesser’s 10 in the final deciding arrow for the championship win.
“I couldn’t be more happy with how this season has started, having finished second at the Iowa Pro-Am and now a win here at the Lancaster Classic,” Marlow said. “This shoot is my favorite of the year and one of the biggest tests of nerves under pressure there can be.”
The Victory X used by Marlow is a bow built on the high-performing Victory platform. Measuring 37 inches axle-to-axle with a 6.75-inch brace height, the Victory X is engineered for forgiveness yet weighs only 4.4 pounds.
Said Darrin Christenberry, Elite Archery pro staff manager: “Jacob Marlow has a great attitude toward his archery and knows that it is just bows and arrows; he doesn’t stress over practice, he doesn’t worry about the outcome, he just puts it in the middle and does what he practices! I admire his ability to just ‘flip the switch’ and go from a fun loving jokester to a fierce competitor in a matter of seconds. He will always act like he hates indoor archery, but the fist pumps I saw this weekend really show what this means to him.”
More 2019 Lancaster Archery Classic Results
The 2019 Lancaster Archery Classic, which was held Jan. 25-27, 2019, in Manheim, Pennsylvania, was one for the record books. Not only did the number of registered archers – 1,794 – shatter last year’s record attendance of 1,488, but Open Pro archer Braden Gellenthien accomplished something that had ever been done only once before in the 16-year history of the East Coast’s largest archery tournament.
In qualifications Friday at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex, Gellenthien, who is one of the world’s most accomplished tournament archers, shot a perfect score of 660. All 60 of his arrows found the center 11 ring. The only time that has ever happened before was in 2009, when Reo Wilde posted a 660 qualification score. FYI: Competitors shoot from a distance of 18 meters (19.7 yards), and the center 11 ring measures 2 cm in diameter (.79 inches). Gellenthien was eventually knocked out of the competition in the second round.
In addition to Marlow winning the Open Pro division, other notable champions crowned were Jack Williams in Men’s Recurve, Gabriela Bayardo in Women’s Recurve, Michael Fisher in Barebow and Tanja Jensen in Women’s Open Pro.
Barebow Craze
The Barebow competition at the Classic has been growing by leaps and bounds the last few years, and 2019 was no exception. After reaching a registration total of 125 in 2018, the number of barebow competitors ballooned this year to 207.
On YouTube, the Barebow finals video from 2018 has been viewed nearly 250,000 times over the past year, generating incredible enthusiasm for and interest in that discipline. For the 2019 finals, the venue was packed with rowdy fans Saturday night, and more than 1,600 followed the livestream of the competition.
The final match between Michael Fisher and Grayson Partlowe was tight, with Fisher ultimately coming out on top, shooting a dead-center 11 on his last shot. (Click here to watch the match; fast-forward to the 37:00 mark of the 42-minute video to see Fisher’s final shot.)
Youth Trophy Tournament
For the second year, the Easton Youth Trophy Tournament offered a tournament within the Classic for young archers who might not yet be ready for the full Classic tournament, but who want to get big-time competition experience.
A total of 375 young archers competed in the single-day event, which costs a fraction of the money required to compete in the Classic. These archers shot the same number of arrows (60) as shot in the Classic qualification, on the same field as that of the Classic archers.
Archers were divided by gender, by equipment – compound, recurve and barebow – and by age, with divisions for Cub, Bowman, Cadet and Junior competitors. Winners were determined by scores posted in the 60-arrow round. And there were some serious scores put up by these young archers.
Out of a possible 660 points, Foster Jones recorded a 624 to win the Compound Cadet Male division; Ryan Kitts won Compound Junior Male with a 633; Hannah Ball won Barebow Cadet Female, and posted the highest score among all the female barebow archers of any age, with a 434; Jada Cho’s 513 in Recurve Cub Female won that division.
Click here for more information on the Lancaster Archery Classic.
