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Long gets revenge, beats Fuller for gold in shotgun grid
By Steve Bowman
Special to GOG
|  | | Gary Bloom takes his best aim during the ESPN Go Games Shotgun finals. |
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — The difference between the 2000 and 2001 Shotgun Grid game in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games was night and day.
Dustin Long, the youngest competitor in the field, won the gold medal, slipping past Doug Fuller, a veteran, by a score of 71 to 64.
Ironically it was Fuller who beat Long a year ago for the gold, by almost the same score, 70 to 64. But since last year, the lights were turned out on the Shotgun Grid game. In 2000, the game was shot during the day, this year it was shot at night under lights.
"It made a big difference," Fuller said. "Last year, the daylight and bright skies made it harder to pick up the target in the washed out background. At night, though, the targets pop making them easy to see."
To illustrate his point, Fuller said that during all four rounds of the 2000 Games, he never had to break a 5-point ring target on his way to the gold.This year, Long owned the 5-point ring, breaking 15 of 16 targets in the ring in the semi-final round and 14 in the final round.
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When you get in a zone, you just get hard to beat. ” |
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— Shotgun winner Dustin Long |
"My eyes may have made the difference," Long said. "People tell me all the time that younger eyes are better to have. But I've never had old eyes so I really don't know."
What Long does know is that once he zeroed in on the 5-point target he got in a zone and every things seemed to click.
"When you get in a zone, you just get hard to beat," Long said.
The game is played on a vertical grid that stands about 60-feet high with seven circles and three half circles utilized as shooting holes. The circles are situated like a tic-tac-toe sketch, and targets are thrown straight up through the middle, or quartering up through the corners.
A shooter receives five points for shooting the targets closest to the ground, 3 points for the center hole and 1 point for the top targets. In addition, three half-moon targets are placed in horizontal row.
A hard, clay target, known as a rabbit is bounced along a board. If the target is shot in the half moon closest to the target release receives five points, with three awarded for the center and one point for the final hole.
"The birds move so fast that you've got to really pick up on them quick," Fuller said. "When you're younger your reflexes and ability to see the target quickly is better.
"When you add that with Dustin's natural ability as one of the best shooters in the world, then you have a combination that is hard to beat."
The differences in reflexes were contrasted in the two's style. Fuller shot the targets in a classic shotgun shooting fashion, holding his sights near where the targets would cross, pulling the trigger and then following through to get a longer shot string headed toward to target.
Long, on the other hand, never moved his barrel once he was set. He would call for the target, and almost immediately pull the trigger, catching the target in the hoop. The tactic worked well enough to produce high scores in each of his rounds, including the semi-final where he scored a 75 out of a possible 80 points.
That round was as close to a perfect round the GO Games have had. Since misses were common even among the finalists, the last round was in question until the final two shots.
Fuller was trailing Long 64 to 65, and needed to break the 5-ring to put pressure on Long for his final shot. But Fuller missed assuring Long the gold medal, even without his final round. Long, though, made it academic by dusting the last target for the final margin.
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