Lucy Mason aged just 15, has won the British Senior Ladies Compound Title at the National Agricultural and Exhibition Centre at Stoneleigh to round off a great weekend for herself and for Deer Park Archers.
Lucy Mason receiving the Ladies Compound Trophy from Mr David Harrison – Chairman of Archery GB.
Having qualified 5th in the 52 strong qualification round on the Sunday morning she convincingly won all 5 of her elimination rounds beating the UK Number 1 Ranked Compound Archer, Andrea Gales in the final. Despite being drawn in the toughest half of the draw she romped to victory after victory, equaling the World Record for a 15 Arrow Pass on 2 occasions!
Lucy defeated Helen Taylor (144-138), Victoria Barby (145-139), Rebecca Lennon (146-141) and Daisy Clark (146-138) to guarantee her place in the final. Andrea’s path was more complex, winning a shoot-off against Linda Townsend, a narrow victory over Gillian Harris and wins against Claudine Jennings and Isabelle Carpenter. But she could not overcome our on-form Lucy, who won the match by four points (144-140)!
Lucy Mason’s winning score in the final against Andrea Gales.
This performance was no flash in the pan as she has broken a series of National Records and landed many titles throughout 2015 and had finished 4th in Saturdays Back2Back competition beating a number of well known international archers in the process.
Lucy Mason enjoying her experience on the Saturday.
Her Club Coaches Steph & Dan Gill commented ‘It was no surprised to them, Lucy’s work ethic and willingness to make the smallest of technical changes in her quest to become the best in the world will see her continue to improve. Lucy will see this simply as a stepping stone in her development and will certainly not get carried away’’.
Chris White Archery GB Compound legend tweeted ‘’ Congratulations Lucy, that was amazing shooting. You have a great career ahead of you, I think you are now the youngest person to win a senior title in the compound division! Brilliant work.’’
Two Deer Park Juniors are members of the GB Senior Compound Elite Squad and James Howse was also performing at the highest level over the weekend. James and Lucy were the only 2 juniors to progress out of the qualification groups in Saturday’s Back2Back competition and on the Sunday James qualified 2nd out of 115 of the UK’s top male compound archers in the ranking round. His score of 586 was a new Junior National Record. Brother Tom also did well in the Recurve section qualifying 26th of the 156 competitors in his section.
James and Tom Howse both shot well over the weekend.
Earlier this year Lucy and James represented GB in the World Junior Championships in the USA and won bronze shooting together in the mixed pairs competition.
Deer Park Archers have been recently awarded grants from the Sport England Inspired Facilities Fund and the Gloucestershire Environmental Trust to continue to develop their recently purchased ground in Shurdington and the next stage should be complete by the end of March 2016.
A thriving club is fundamental to supporting the development of the undoubted potential in Gloucestershire, that is just waiting for the support that the club can provide! The Club’s ethos of encouraging competition and supporting the development of potential regardless of what that is, will hopefully see many more such successes in the future.
Please see our earlier report for our junior archer’s achievements on the Saturday and a further report on all our other archers performances at the National Indoor Championships will be issued as soon as we have the details.
