Eddie Garcia Holds Off Chris Fritz To Claim Area 1 Open Title

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. – Cameron’s Custom Guns’ Eddie Garcia of Mesa, Ariz. went from a fifth place finish in 2010 to claiming the Open division title this year at the USPSA Area 1 Regional Handgun Championship, Presented by Springfield Armory.

Garcia began the match in second place after Chris Fritz of Spanaway, Wash. won the first stage, but quickly bounced back to take the lead with his first of five stage wins on the second stage of the match.

Fritz was able to reclaim the lead on the next stage and held it through the fifth stage where Garcia began his move back to frontrunner status with his second stage win. With two more immediate stage wins on stages six and seven, Garcia opened up his lead to 32 points.

Despite picking up two late stage wins, and coming to within 0.3435 points of Garcia after the tenth stage, Fritz was unable to overtake the leader and finished in second place with a final score of 1149.6590 points to Garcia’s 1161.0812.

“Open division competition is always fierce and Eddie was very strong this weekend, finishing in the top three on nine stages, and no lower than seventh on any stage, to hold off Chris,” said Chuck Anderson, the USPSA Area 1 director.

Rounding out the top five was James Ong of Reno, Nev. repeating his 2010 third place finish with a score of 1103.1880. Nick Helterline of Everett, Wash. won three stages and finished in fourth with 1090.0614 points while Keith Tyler of Vancouver, Wash. took fifth with 1050.0179.

Elsewhere in the Open division, Athena Lee, the Team Limcat shooter from Katy, Texas, finished 11th overall with nine stage wins and a final score of 938.2747 points to claim the Women’s Open division title. Dexter Bradley of West Richland, Wash. finished as the top junior shooter with 831.7677. Among the senior shooters, Canadian Frank Koch of Calgary, Alberta won the Senior title with 903.3180 points while Frank Cook of Butte, Mont. won the Super Senior title for the fourth year in a row with his score of 793.5845.

The 2011 USPSA Area 1 Regional Handgun Championship, Presented by Springfield Armory, was held June 22-26 at Albany Rifle and Pistol Club in Shedd, Ore. and drew 318 top pistol shooters from around the country, as well as Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, the states that make up the Area 1 region.

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