Christian Sasso & Aliana McMaster top Motul National Sporting Clays Championships

Christian Sasso and Aliana McMaster battled some punishing conditions of searing heat and high humidity on Saturday and Sunday at the Tru-Juice property in Bog Walk, St. Catherine to take a decisive hold on this year’s Motul National Sporting Clays Championship. They came out ahead of a massive field of one hundred and thirty-eight other shooters

They shot one hundred targets/birds each day and in Sasso’s case, he had to shoot an additional twenty-five birds on Sunday as part of the very competitive Super Six shoot-off.  That shoot off is an intense battle among the shooters with the six best scores at the end of the main event (200 birds).

Sunday’s Super Six shoot off consisted of eight gunners who entered the ‘bullring’ to determine the best sporting clays shooter. After the Super Six scores were added to the main event scores, they ended with the following scores – Sasso 181, Roman Tavares-Finson 178, Shaun Barnes 177, Mark Desnoes 174, Geoffrey Zaidie 172, JJ Ralston 171, Chad Zaidie 170 and Ian Banks 169.

Sasso’s 181 was three shots better than his nearest rival Roman Tavares-Finson, which gave him the title of HOA – highest overall and bragging rights above his fierce competitors. His two-day scores were 81 and 82 respectively on Saturday and Sunday for 163 in the main event while Tavares-Finson posted 79 and 83 respectively for a combined total of 182.

“It feels good. A long time I haven’t taken the 200-bird tournament so, you know, mi tek this one and celebrate” said a very pleased Sasso. “Yeah, it was a long two days. Two hundred birds, the Super Six. Sun was very hot so we had to, you know, stay hydrated out there. We had amazing birds set by Oneil and his team and you know at the end I was victorious, you know so things worked out for me.”

The female champion Aliana McMaster posted 77 and 76 respectively on Saturday and Sunday for a two-total total of 153, to cop the title for the third year in a row. The runner-up in the Ladies category was Wendy McMaster (her mother) with scores of 69 and 70, 139 overall.

McMaster was very expressive in her assessment of the event and her performance. “Honestly, I’m always so grateful for every win, I’m always so thankful because frankly, you can’t guarantee that it’s going to come, you can’t say oh yes because I’ve reached a certain skill level then it must happen. It doesn’t have to happen, it’s not guaranteed. So, there’s obviously some marks that I didn’t meet this weekend, and that’s ok it just shows that there’s still room for growth. There’s always next year and I look forward to going after them one more time.”

“Honestly the courses were solid. They were very good, tough but good. For the standard that it was supposed to be I definitely found that the course setters they match up and meet the standards that we were kinda looking for as competitors and I could really appreciate the course that they set. I think yesterday was a bit more challenging than today but today still came with it’s own technical difficulties and challenges in itself so I honestly could just appreciate both courses and it was definitely a rough weekend but it was also an enjoyable weekend” said McMaster.

The champions (using main event scores only) were: A Class – Shaun Barnes 163; B Class – Lennin Thompson – 154; C Class – Brian Kong 142; D Class – Phillip Burgess 141; E Class – Tyler Grant 121; Ladies Aliana McMaster 153; Juniors – JJ Ralston 156; Sub Juniors – Rheis McMaster 119 and Hunters or Beginners – Ruben Carillo – 105.

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