GAINESVILLE — Craig Hancock is not easily impressed.
Hancock, an International Skeet shotgun coach based in Eatonton, trains Olympic teams from all over the world. He oversaw the rise of his own son, Vincent, who won the Junior World Championships in the sport at the age of 16 and followed that by winning gold medals in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics by the age of 23.
“I’ve seen my share of incredible shooters,” said Hancock, while preparing for a trip to Cyprus to help American shooters get ready for international competition in preparation of the the upcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Yet Hancock was more than impressed by a young hotshot named Sam Simonton.
The 16-year-old is not a household name, but SHE is easily recognized around the hallways at Lakeview Academy. And that recognition is set to grow substantially in the near future.
“I was blown away from the first time I saw her shoot,” Hancock said. “Talent was just oozing out of her. It usually takes three or four years of intense training to do some of the things she can do.
“Just amazing, really. She is one of the few people I’ve ever come across that impressed me right from the start. Believe me, that’s saying something.”
Simonton will be heading to Cyprus herself March 16-24, looking to qualify for the final round of U.S. Olympic competition. She must make a minimum qualifying score (MQS) of 60 out of 75 targets over a three-round session in international competition. One of just two spots for the Olympic team is already claimed by Morgan Craft out of Pennsylvania. Simonton and six others are vying for the final position.
Simonton currently is ranked eighth in the U.S. for all female shooters, regardless of age, and is the No. 2-ranked Junior (under-21) in the nation. She is the youngest of the group, and the least experienced, competing for that final spot.
She will also head to Suhl, Germany, in May as part of the U.S. Junior World Cup team, which is invite only. She is considered a favorite to win that international competition.
While Simonton has been shooting American Skeet competitively for three years, her exposure to International Skeet is barely a year old. Though similar, International Skeet uses smaller, thinner targets than American Skeet and can have up to a three-second delay before launching clay targets from two separate “houses” on opposite sides of a semicircle field.
While it may be tougher than where Simonton started in the sport, it is miles from where her athletic career was tracking prior to high school.
Just three years ago, Simonton was like most typical up-and-coming middle school athletes. She played basketball and ran cross country, but her true passion was in Equestrian. She traveled around the country with her horse Callie and hoped one day to have a shot at the Olympics.
But frustrations over “subjective scoring” and the costs involved of maintaining a horse and trying to compete at a high level began to sway her thoughts in other directions.
“I like basketball and like cross country and think I could have been pretty good at both by now. But I was behind some of the other girls, and the equestrian was really going good and what I really loved, and I didn’t have enough time to do all of them so I really just started concentrating on equestrian,” Simonton said. “But it was frustrating when you felt like you had a great ride and didn’t get the score. That was tough to take sometimes. Plus, it was really becoming expensive to keep trying to move up to the next level.”
Almost as if on cue, in 2013 Lakeview Academy began an American Skeet shotgun team, the only program north of Atlanta in the state, that competes in the GISA division. Simonton had been shooting for fun for years, “I got my first BB gun when I was about five and I started shooting rifles and killed my first deer before I was eight,” she said.
A friend of a friend suggested that they invite Simonton to try out for the team.
“Some people knew that I had been shooting for a while and they asked me to be on the team when I was in the ninth grade. But I was still riding equestrian and that was really what I thought I wanted to do,” she said. “I had shot shotguns before and to be honest I really didn’t like it so I wasn’t really sure. But I gave it a shot.”
According to Lakeview Academy team coach Mike Lawley, it was evident from nearly the start that they might have something special.
“She seemed like a natural to us,” he said. “She’s very calm and focused. She doesn’t look like a 16-year-old out there.”
To Lawley and other observers, it was like a duck taking to water. And it didn’t take long for the successes to start showing up.
Simonton won the GISA Girls General Division Skeet state title as a freshman. She has since followed that up with two more state titles as a sophomore and junior.
“I have always been around guys and I am super competitive so if I’m going to do something I just try to be the best I can be,” she said. “I didn’t think I would be able to be that good that fast. I was really surprised.
“I was still playing basketball and riding, but after that I decided to give those up and just concentrate on shooting and my grades at school. I just felt like I had more of an upside shooting.”
The GISA season is in the fall and the Lakeview Academy team trains locally at the Cherokee Gun Club off Candler Highway. She also joined the Lake Oconee Shotgun Team as part of the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP), similar to AAU in basketball, which was based in Greene County, not too far from the Simonton family farm in Watkinsville.
In 2014, she finished second in trap in the U.S. in the JV Women’s American Skeet as part of the Lake Oconee team. After two years with that group, though, she decided to give that up and shoot for something bigger.
“Coach Hancock said I should try and qualify for the Junior Worlds so I started shooting International Skeet,” she said. “It was much more challenging but I started to get the hang of it pretty quick.”
Cue Hancock again.
“My son included, I’ve never had a student as talented as Sam in such a short period of time,” Hancock said. “It took my son several years to reach the level (Sam) is at in just one. She’s remarkable. She is a female version of him.
“Her hand-eye coordination is unreal. It’s the kind of sport that suits her talents perfectly. But I tell you what. She works extremely hard at it as well. She doesn’t seem to take her talent for granted.”
Despite her high ranking, and a 22.6-out-of-25 target average per round, qualifying for the 2016 Olympics will be a long shot for Simonton.
“Slim to none, probably,” she said. “(The other qualifiers) all shot at the fall qualifying and I don’t have enough points built up. But, I’m going to go out there and do the best I can and see what happens.
“Honestly, my real target is the 2020 Olympics (in Tokyo). And trying to win the Junior Worlds. It would be great if I could make (the Olympics) this year but I’m not expecting that.”
“It’s a long shot for her, for sure,” Hancock said. “But I wouldn’t put anything past her. She always seems to have a surprise or two for us.”
While the 2016 Olympics may be a long shot, the Junior World Cup is another story. Simonton and her training partner, Katie Jacob, also 16, out of Michigan, are among the favorites with legitimate chances to bring home the championship.
Simonton has been able to stay under the radar so to speak during her rise through the Skeet ranks. That will all probably change by the end of May.
“No doubt Sam has a very good chance to win it,” Hancock said. “But the biggest thing is that a lot of people will be watching and get to see what she can do. Every time we go somewhere people come up to me and say, ‘where in the world did you find her?’ And I say, right here (in Georgia) in our own backyard.
“I’m really excited to see how she handles the international stage. I haven’t seen anything that can rattle her but one of the reasons for doing this is to take her out of her comfort zone. The talent is already there. Now we’re working on the mental side of things and the fundamentals. If she continues as she is, I really think the sky is the limit for her.”
But Simonton hesitated when contemplating what the prospects of becoming a household name in the industry of Skeet shooting would mean to her.
“I just think it’s the coolest thing ever to have a chance at going to an Olympics. I just feel blessed to have this opportunity,” Simonton said. “I haven’t really thought about how this might change things. Honestly, I’m just a 16-year-old girl from Gainesville. That’s who I am.”
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/3/374873/sam-simonton