Pres Rallies To Win USPSA Area 1 Single Stack Title

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. — In the tightest contest of the 2010 U.S. Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) Area 1 Regional Handgun Championship, Utah’s Peter Pres of West Jordan surged past Jon Huspek of St. Paul, Minn., by winning the final two stages of the match to take the Single Stack division title.

Pres, who initially led the match by winning the first two stages, quickly fell to second place as Huspek won stages three and four and expanded his lead to more than 83 points when he won the sixth stage of the match.

On the seventh stage Pres began his rally by winning the stage and chipping away at Huspek’s lead.

Going into the 10th stage of the match, Huspek still had more than a 71-point lead over Pres but a big stage 10 win by Pres closed the gap to a little over 25, setting up the 11th and final stage of the match as do-or-die for both competitors.

With a total of 160 stage points at stake, Huspek ran the stage in a time of 28.95 seconds but threw an extra round downrange hitting a no-shoot target, picking up a penalty and taking himself out of contention to win the stage.

With the match on the line, Pres ran the stage clean in a time of just 25.63 seconds to win the stage and pick up 160 points to Huspek’s 131.3999, giving Pres a final match score of 1108.1632 and the win.

“The battle between Peter and Jon was one of the best of the match. It’s always exciting to watch a match come down to the final stage and see who can pull off the win. This was Peter’s day and we congratulate him on an outstanding shooting performance,” said Michael Voigt, president of the U.S. Practical Shooting Association.

Huspek finished the match in second with 1104.6899 points. Finishing third was David Cook of Shelley, Idaho, who also claimed the Senior Single Stack title with his final score of 1055.4850.

Bill Marrs of Amity, Ore., and Bill Mayne of Hoquiam, Wash., placed fourth and fifth shooting 1005.5437 and 989.7430 respectively.

The match, which was held June 24-27 at the South East Idaho Practical Shooters range in Idaho Falls, Idaho, drew 325 top shooters.

Area 1 is one of the eight USPSA shooting regions in the country and is made up of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, but shooters from 12 other states, as well as Canada, competed for the championship title in USPSA’s Open, Limited, Limited-10, Production, Revolver and Single Stack divisions.

The sport of Practical Shooting was formally established in 1976 but traces its roots back to the 1950’s and the quick draw “leather slap” competitions that grew out of America’s love affair with the TV westerns of that era.

Today the sport boasts more than 19,000 shooters and represents the upper echelon of the shooting sports with many of its top competitors actively training law enforcement and military units on the shooting techniques and equipment developed in competition.

For full match results, or information on the sport of practical shooting, visit www.USPSA.org or follow @USPSA_Shooting on Twitter.