Carson Precise In Skeet Championships
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Sydney Carson, a member of the Kosko Shotgun Sports Complex in Warsaw, won the USA Shooting Women’s Skeet National Championship on Tuesday in Colorado Springs.
Carson, who is from North Liberty, has been a member of the USA Shooting National Junior Team since 2014 and will now be named to the National Team as a result of her win.
Carson won her first national championship at the National, hit a perfect 16/16 targets to claim the gold medal. She becomes the sixth different Skeet National Champion over the past six years. Nobody has repeated since Kim Rhode in 2011 on her way to claiming her fifth straight National title.
Carson, 19, was a 2015 Junior World Championships silver medalist, enters a National Team loaded with Women’s Skeet talent: Six U.S. women have medaled in international competition with 17 international medals earned, including the past two World Champions and the 2015 Pan American Games Champion.
“I was in disbelief after I won it,” Carson said. “After my 15 in the Semifinal, I had realized I was for sure going to be put on the National Team, which is an accomplishment in itself. To go ahead and win the whole thing just made it so much better!”
Carson’s interest in skeet shooting was sparked six years ago when she heard about a local skeet shooting team. While she’d had experience with hunting but she had never been on a shooting team, but decided it was something she wanted to get involved in. She became a member of Kosko Shotgun Sports Complex, Warsaw, and eventually became a Junior World Championships silver medalist in 2014.
When Carson reached the semifinals for the Nationals and discovered she would become part of the National Team, she was surprised. “I knew I would go to the National Team. I was in shock that I accomplished that goal of mine.”
One of the reasons Carson loves this sport so much is because, “You may not be as athletic, but you can still become good just by practicing.”
She is currently studying Forensic Psychology at Martin Methodist College in Tennessee on a clay target shooting scholarship. While Carson is taking a break from skeet shooting right now, she will be begin practicing again in October, when she will be trying out for the World Cup Team. Carson plans to try out for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Kosko also has a youth team based out of the same club called the Kosko Dust Devils, which competed at the SCTP National Championships July 9-15 and earned two Squad National Championships, two Individual National Championships and Individual second and third places.