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Shooting Sports Assistant Coach, Cassy Pelton, takes athlete to Argentina to compete in the 2023 Pan Am Field Archery Championships.

Cassy Pelton joined the Shooting Sports Education Center (SSEC) in 2018 as the Head Archery Coach before being promoted to Assistant Director in 2023. During her time here, she has had the opportunity to work with and train several student athletes – Martin Holzman being one of them.

Martin has been shooting archery with the SSEC since 2017, coming up through our JOAD program, joining Eagle Creek Archery and has been working with Cassy as his coach for 5 years. Together, they traveled to Argentina to compete in the USA Archery Pan Am Championships – an event that hasn’t been held in 40 years.

Cassy said, “This event was an experience I will never forget. I was very proud to be wearing Team USA’s colors. Moreover, I could not be more proud of how my personal athlete, Martin, performed. Not only did he come away with two Bronze medals in his first ever international event, he proved himself to be a strong-willed and tenacious young man. He had his fair share of challenges the entire week, but never allowed them to get him down.”

Team USA Archery

Cassy continues, “events like these are always inspiring. From my experiences competing and now coaching internationally, I have found that this sport brings out the best in people. We don’t always speak the same language, or even share the same cultural experiences, but we share the same passion and spirit. Archery is what unites us. No matter what’s going on in the world we share that common ground. To be able to share that experience with an athlete I have watched grow is probably the coolest thing I have ever done.”

The competition location really pushed all athletes to their limits. Archers walked two courses in virgin jungle over five days of competition.

Day one of qualifications was unknown distance day. Archers estimated distances on 24 targets, shooting 3 arrows per target. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, it was raining the entire first day of qualifications. Difficult terrain became treacherous with mud. Equipment became unwieldy and heavy with water.

Day two of qualifications was known distance day. Archers shot on different courses where all distances were marked. Though the previous day had been stormy, this day was very hot and humid. Unfortunately it was not quite hot enough to dry out all the mud from the previous day so the terrain was still difficult to navigate. 

“Archery is what unites us.”

SSEC Assistant Director, Cassy Pelton

Day three was mixed team and full team competitions. Mixed team included two athletes from the same country, same bow type but different gender. Archers shot four targets, two arrows each. The team shot 4 arrows in total. Full team included 3 athletes from the same country, same gender, but different bow types. Each team consisted of a compound shooter, an Olympic recurve shooter and a barebow shooter. Archers shot 4 targets, one arrow per athlete, three arrows in total per target. Both mixed team and full team matches ran all the way through medal matches.

Day four was individual elimination matches. Archers shot head to head in thru a six target range, three arrows per target. The highest scoring athlete at the end of the match moved on and the lowest scoring athlete was eliminated. Athletes competed all the way through the semi-final matches.

Day five was all Bronze and Gold individual medal matches. All of these matches were held at the finals venue at a nearby hotel.

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