Connor Thigpen spent Monday morning back in class in Cuero, Texas, chipping away at a backlog of schoolwork. He had a decent excuse.
At the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio, the high school senior and Team Remington shooter won the Main Event High Over All title at the 2026 NSSA World Skeet Championships with a 499x500. He beat teammate Sheaffer Stanfill in a shoot-off for High All Around and, before any of that, collected the Mini World HOA crown. The World Shoot ran Sept. 25-Oct. 3 with 587 shooters competing in the Main Event.
Nobody else in the 275-shooter HOA field managed better than 498x500. Houston Deshotels of Smyrna, Georgia, another Team Remington shooter, and Edward Smith of Palmyra, New York, both landed on that number, with Deshotels taking the runner-up medal and Smith third. Stanfill, from Clarksville, Tennessee, finished at 497x500 to win AAA1, and William Ponder of Los Alamos, New Mexico, took AAA2 at 496x500.
High All Around was tighter still. Thigpen and Stanfill finished level at 596x600 and went to a shoot-off. Thigpen won it, the second time that week he edged his teammate for a major title.
His preparation was hardly monastic. “I tried to practice at least once a week during the month leading up to the World Shoot,” Thigpen said. “I feel extremely grateful to come out on top against such a talented group of shooters.”
He shot Remington’s STS loads in 20-gauge, 28-gauge and .410 bore for most of the week, and he counts his place on Team Remington among the biggest honors of his career.
The Mini World set the tone. Thigpen and Stanfill both posted 399x400 to lead a 261-shooter HOA field, with Thigpen taking the title and Stanfill the runner-up spot. Three more shooters sat one target back at 398x400: Mitch Holmes in third, Deshotels winning AAA1 and Alessandro Vitale of Lutherville, Maryland, winning AAA2.
Holmes, a Team Remington Development Squad member from Crawford, Texas, had a week that would headline most years. Shooting as a Junior, he won the Mini Open Doubles Championship, then took Open World Championship titles in 12-gauge and Doubles against the full field. His 12-gauge win came in a shoot-off against Deshotels in a field of 569. In Doubles, he left no room for argument, posting the event’s only perfect score.
Spare a thought for Deshotels, who finished second to a teammate in both HOA and 12-gauge, once by a single target and once in a shoot-off.
Stanfill finally got his. After settling for runner-up at the Mini World and coming up short in the HAA shoot-off, he won the .410 bore event, which Remington Ammunition sponsored. Six of the 518 competitors went 100x100, and Stanfill outlasted the other five in the shoot-off.
Alison Turner’s title may have been the most improbable of the week. Turner gave birth to a daughter this spring and had practiced only twice since May. She won Lady High Over All anyway, the first time she has claimed that NSSA title.
“I just came out here with the weight off my shoulders and just wanted to come out here and have fun and I brought a win home,” Turner said.
“Team Remington has a lot of young guns, and they certainly turned in some great performances,” said Christian Hogg, Remington’s marketing director.
Thigpen, for his part, still has makeup work to finish. By his account, a few busy weeks are a fair trade for what he brought home from San Antonio.
Full results from the 2026 NSSA World Skeet Championships are available on the NSSA website.
