The USPSA Area 3 Championship occupies a unique place in the competition calendar. The match is well-known for its often difficult stages and complex props. It attracts the highest level of shooters in the sport, and this year was no different. 338 shooters completed this year’s event over three days in Nebraska.
USPSA Area 3 Championship: Carry Optics
Starting with Carry Optics, Team SIG shooter Max Michel cruises to a solid win over Nils Jonasson in second place. Despite only winning 6 of 14 stages, Max was able to stay consistent throughout the match and didn’t melt down on any stages. Nils came storming back on the back half of the match, winning 4 stages in a row. But that wasn’t enough to overcome finishing 20th, 14th, and 13th on three different stages.
In the Women’s side of Carry Optics, Ashley Rheuark edged Morgan Leonhardt by just over 2%.
USPSA Area 3 Championship: Limited Division
Moving over to the land of iron sighted race guns, Shane Coley just edged Louisiana State Representative and Top Shot alum Blake Miguez to take the title by 1.78%. Both shooters battled back and forth taking stage wins at different phases. Both also hit some rough patches on different stages, which kept the match within both of their reach to the final stage. There’s nothing better than a match that comes down to the last shot.
The story for the Women’s Limited title is a bit different. In Limited, Michelle Viscusi absolutely beat the snot out of the competition. She easily handled her work to take the Lady category win by almost 30% over her next closest competition.
Open Division: King of the Raceguns
Moving on to the king of raceguns, and the last pure division in USPSA. Open division’s winner is KC Eusebio, with a commanding 7% win. Winning six stages and taking 2nd place on four more placed him in command of the match for the duration. Despite a slight bobble on stage 7, there was never really any danger to KC in the match.
The same is largely true for the Lady’s Open category. Jessie Harrison had two bad stages that might have left the door open. However, here competitors failed to take advantage of that. Jessie won the Lady’s category with a solid 5%.
USPSA Area 3 Championship’s Tightest Race: PCC
Pistol caliber carbine had a BATTLE at the USPSA Area 3 Championship. Andre Desauntel just barely edged out John McClain. The final margin of victory was 0.21% in a match John won more stages than Andre. However, Andre was able to secure victory by out-pointing McClain on key high point value stages. Despite only winning one stage, Desauntel took home the match victory.
Production, Revolver, and Single Stack
Moving on to the low capacity divisions at the USPSA Area 3 Championship. None of these were particularly close fights. USPSA’s culture has shifted away from Production as the dominant division. 38 shooters completed the match in Production, compared to 113 in Carry Optics. Jacob Hetherington took an easy win in Production by 9%.
However, no one had an easier win that Revolver division, where two noble wheelgun warriors competed heads up. Shooting a revolver at Area 3 has been described like “as much fun as pounding a nail through your own hand” due to the notoriously high round count stages. But these two brave souls stood up to the challenge. Unfortunately, it was a one-sided fight. Craig Seymour won every single stage, and crushed is single opportunity.
The story is similar in Single Stack. Three brave souls faced the challenge of the USPSA Area 3 Championship with limited capacity guns. In the end, Jerry Westcott took the win by 8.5%.
As usual, the Area 3 match presented some unique shooting challenges! It also served up its normal heaping helping of disqualifications, or DQs in the sport’s lingo. 13 shooters earned a trip to Dairy Queen at the match.
Without a doubt, the Area 3 Championship keeps its reputation as a tough match intact after this year! Congratulations to all the winners, and to all the competitors. Even if you’re not happy about your performance, you still beat everyone that stayed on their couch.
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