Browning Briley Mardi Gras
Article by Mike Hafley
Last year when I heard that the Browning Briley was taking their show on the road, I wasn’t sure what to expect. They had what I thought was a pretty good thing going in Houston, and I knew the Mardi Gras was doing well in its own right. They were both running in the neighborhood of 300 plus shooters per event. I was curious of how it would affect the number of shooters and the shoot overall. I must admit I was surprised when the total registration numbers popped up at 650 plus in attendance at this year’s event. If you take the total number of shooters at each event last year and add them together, you are just over what was in attendance for this event alone. If you take into consideration the number of people that shot both events last year that makes the gains for this year’s event pretty good. Anytime you put over 650 shooters in one spot for the weekend you are doing something right. Whether it is people wanting to get a look at the venue before the US open, or just a case of right time right place, this event was what will surely be one of the bigger events of the year.
Like most of the events and clubs with a track record like Cajun Elite, their big events seem to just keep getting bigger. Clubs are adding more events and more days for people to enjoy them. This one had enough events to keep you busy from daylight until dark all four days if that is what you were after. The sub-gauge ran from Thursday until Sunday as did the FITASC and the 5-Stand. They had a Thursday Preliminary, Friday Preliminary and the Main Event. The FITASC and the Friday Preliminary are two of the events that filled up with a waiting list of shooters for any open spots that might become available.
The kick off on Thursday’s preliminary found Wendell Cherry in a familiar spot on the top of the leader board. His 92 put him five targets ahead of Brad Kidd, who took the Runner-up spot with a score of 87 followed by Bill McGuire and Bobby Fowler at 86 and 84 respectively. Wendell posted the only score that broke into the 90’s in the event. Ladies was won by DeeAnn Massey followed by Ella Breaux in second. The Juniors for Thursday was won by Curtis Wright and Sub-Juniors by Taylor Duhon. David Lauzen would win Veterans, with Ruben Spell and George Lyons winning the Super Veterans and Senior Super Veterans Concurrent.
Neil Chadwick and David Rippetoe were chosen to set the targets for the sporting events but Neil was unable to attend because of illness in the family. David Rippetoe stepped in and treated the shooters to what would be a good balance of warm up targets before the main event. I am fond of Neil’s targets but was not disappointed in anything that was thrown this weekend. Having shot David’s targets a few times, I knew they would be a challenging mixture of targets. Friday’s preliminary was a little deceptive, targets seemed to be hanging in air with very little speed and distance. I would have to believe that they were well inside everyone’s comfort zone and the scores seemed to reflect the same. The longest target of the set was in the 35-38 yard range and only a few had any true speed to them. In watching shooters over the course of the event, the two targets I saw missed repeatedly was an incoming target at station five and a pair of overhead targets at station seven. Landing approximately 6 yards from the shooting stand, the incoming target at five was time after time shot at and then plopped into the pond for a loss target. I watched several of the overheads off of the tower at station seven sail off into the wild blue yonder also. I think the set up on this station proved to be the deciding factor on your score. For those who looked straight up to catch the targets coming overhead, it seemed to be a little easier than for those who waited for the targets to pass the stand to get a look at them.
Like I mentioned earlier, big scores would be the order of the day. Michael Coleman took the HOA spot with a solid score of 98, leaving Anthony Matarese and Brian Hughes tied at 96 for the runner-up spot. In talking to Anthony after his round, he felt his 96 was going to be light by at least one target if not two. He was proven right and would end up in the Master 1st place spot with Brian Hughes taking the Runner-up position. Friday’s preliminary would have a total of 32 scores in the nineties compared to one in the nineties the day before. The mixture of targets seemed to be equally challenging for all. No one class shot better than the other, each of the seven classes was won by a score that was at least one target below the class above it. Ashleigh Hafley won the Juniors and the Ladies Concurrent followed by DeeAnn Massey in Ladies and Hub Johnson in Juniors. James Bryan won Sub-Juniors, with the always lethal Gary Greenway leading a long list of Veterans. Ron Shafer came out on top of the Super Veterans with Dan Floeck winning the new concurrent of Senior Super Veteran.
Two courses were laid out for the main event, and the blue course would be the side we would visit first. Set much like the Friday preliminary, the course was laid out to be user friendly. Station after station shooters were treated to fair and breakable targets. Station one had what seemed the longest target on it, which was a slow in developing crosser that tailed off speed at the end. As the speed bled off, it started to curl and die in the forty yard range. Most shooters opted to attempt it in the last of its flight path after it started showing dome and just before it hit the ground. Success on this station was judged by how many of the close crossers you hit in conjunction with the longer target. They both proved to be equally deceptive as we watched several shooters scatter misses between the two.
Going into the final round on Sunday, the leader board was spattered with scores in the 90’s on both courses. Brian Hughes would be the day one leader by posting a score of 96 on the red course, followed by a group of no less than nine shooters within three targets of that number. Janet McDougall would lead the ladies into day two with a score of 88 on the red course. Kyler Ford, Hub Johnson, Robert Hamilton, Gene Sherrod and Ray Tipton would be on top of their respective concurrent after day one.
The wind was a bit more brisk on Sunday, with a few gusts that were sure to make the targets a bit more challenging. The red course was once again similar to the rest of the weekend. They were all well thought out to give shooters of all abilities the opportunity of doing well. One of the better stations had a right to left climbing target with some speed and distance along with a fast teal target on report. It made for an interesting pair, and setup to the second target was critical for success on the teal. The red course also included rabbits on back to back stations, one close and fast and one not so close and faster. With the weekend events winding down and the scores being tallied, everyone was waiting for the final results to be posted.
By Sunday evening when the score board was posted, Brian Hughes would be unable to back up his score of 96 on Saturday and would eventually drop to Master 12th. Anthony Matarese would capitalize on this open window for the come from behind win. Matarese topped his score of 95 on Saturday with an impressive 97. Rounding out the top three were Gebben Miles with an equally impressive 190 followed by Wendell Cherry taking third with a 188 after a shoot off with Cory Kruse. The most recent addition to the concurrents, Super Senior Veterans, would see Ray Tipton at the top with a commanding 24 bird victory over his nearest competitior Mr. Dan Floek. Super Veterans was won by Norman D. Smith with 162 and the Veteran concurrent saw Robert Hamilton taking the win by one over Gary Greenway. The Junior concurrent found the top score of 178 tied between Justin Fox and Hub Johnson. In an impromptu shoot off Justin Fox took the win followed by Hub Johnson and Ian Anderson taking third. Kyler Ford took the Sub-Junior win with a thirteen target gap between him and his closest competitor Abel Spire. In Ladies, there was a two way tie between Janet McDougall and Deeann Massey with a score of 162. Deeann would take the win over Janet leaving Ashleigh Hafley in third. The FITASC was won by Curtis Mauldin with an unprecedented score of 95 followed by Scott Robertson with a 94 and Anthony Matarese 93. In Ladies, Caitlin Conner would be named the winner followed by Janet McDougall. The Junior Concurrent would see Abel Spire taking the victory followed by the familiar name of Theo Ribbs. Veterans saw Jerry Moss at the top and Super Veterans was taken by Gene Sherrod. I would like to leave you with a heads up if you have not been here before and plan on attending the US Open in May. If the courses are laid out the same as they have been in the past the lanes are narrow and backups seem to be common. Saturday found us at station 1 on the blue course with 6 squads in front of us waiting to shoot. With only 13 stations total that put somewhere around a 1/3 of the shooters on the course at this one station waiting to shoot. As far as I could tell, there was no trap breakage while we waited so I am not sure what caused the slow down. The club is laid out in such a way that getting away from cart traffic is almost impossible. At one of the stations I counted over 30 carts passing by in both directions while the squad was waiting to shoot. With the cart paths being narrow and carts sometimes needing to pass each other it makes for hectic travel. You also have to drive through one of the courses to get to the FITASC layouts, adding to the traffic, noise, and dust. If cart traffic is a distraction for you, you will need to find a cure before May. One of the other things was lack of water on the course, we saw several coolers in place over the first two days of the events. I only found one of them with water and none of them had cups. I would suggest tossing something in your shooter's bag before you leave for your round. Hopefully they will address some of these issues before the US Open in May.
