By Colleen Kane
Enquirer staff writer

Jason McKittrick was shooting down competition all week at the U.S. Olympic Archery Trials, trying to climb his way out of a first-day 12th-place position.

On Saturday at Mason's Heritage Oak Park, 11 points were all that stood between a trip to Athens and another Olympics as a backup - 11 points too many.

Vic Wunderle, top seat of the 2004 Men's Olympic archery team, shoots during the final rounds of competition at the Olympic trials at Heritage Oak Park in Mason. (Sarah Conard photo)

McKittrick, the 2000 Olympics alternate from Holton, Ind., finished the five-day competition in fourth place with 4,461 points to become the U.S. Olympic men's team alternate. John Magera, a 34-year-old with only one year's experience in Olympic-style competition, remained steady enough to claim the third and final spot on the team with 4,472 points.

"Maybe I haven't been doing this long enough to feel pressure," Magera said. "I had nothing to lose. I don't have a reputation or any titles to defend. ... I'm just here to have fun."

Trials winner Vic Wunderle (4,610) and runner-up Richard "Butch" Johnson (4,567) will join Magera on the men's team. Jenny Nichols won the women's Trials and will be joined on the U.S. team by Stephanie Arnold and Janet Dykman. Kendra Harvey, 16, will be the women's alternate.

McKittrick had jumped from 12th to sixth to fifth to fourth throughout the week. Magera gave him an opening Saturday afternoon, dropping two of his last three matches with an afternoon average of 104.3. McKittrick got within 10 points of Magera - one bull's-eye or two sets of match-win bonus points - with one match to play, but he couldn't close the gap.

Men's US Olympic archery team, from left, Butch Johnson (2nd), Vic Wunderle (1st), John Magera (3rd) and Jason McKittrick (alternate). (Sarah Conard photo)

"I thought if I shot well it would be really close, but I struggled on the third end (set of arrows), and then I lost it," McKittrick said.

Magera, who trained for the Trials in his and his neighbor's front yards in Carterville, Ill., will participate in his first international competition in July when the U.S. team heads to the European Grand Prix in Turkey. It's not the first time for Wunderle, a 2000 Olympic individual silver and team bronze medalist, and Johnson, a three-time Olympian and member of the 1996 gold-medal team.

"It's almost like it's just another tournament, except there's a lot more media hype," Johnson said of the Trials.

On the women's side, six months after a major surgery sidelined her for much of the winter, Dykman will head to her third Olympics with first-timers Nichols and Arnold.

"Just to be able to go to Athens and represent my country and my God is the opportunity of a lifetime," Nichols said. "I don't know what to expect when I get to Athens, but I'm sure it will be better than anything I can imagine."

Nichols dominated the Trials from the start, finishing with 4,510 points, 259 points ahead of Arnold and 283 points ahead of Dykman.

"It's almost indescribable - Jenny has just fallen into archery," U.S. women's coach Sheri Rhodes said. "Her passion just drives her. ... She's spent a lot of time this year learning about herself, and it's taken her to the next level."

The women will try to end a 16-year medal drought after winning a 1988 team bronze. The men will try for their fourth team and individual medals in five Olympics.

"You can see by the scores the guys were shooting, it's a wonderful team," Wunderle said. "We have a great chance of bringing home a medal in Athens."