McClellan and Turner win Augusta County Cornhole regional doubles title

Matthew McClellan and Jacob Turner did not win Augusta County by chasing the loudest shots. They won by keeping the bracket simple, limiting the big miss, and landing their best runs when the pressure tightened at the end.

At Augusta County Cornhole Regional #7 Novice Doubles, held at Horizons Edge Sports Complex in Harrisonburg, Virginia, McClellan and Turner put together the kind of bracket run that usually decides novice fields: steady scoring, quick recovery after mistakes, and enough composure to close. The event, directed by Heather Mattox, opened with doors at 8:00 a.m., a 9:00 a.m. big blind draw and doubles starting at 12:30 p.m., and the pace of the day matched the bracket, where several pairings posted competitive early scores and a few matches got out of hand fast.

McClellan and Turner were the pair that kept getting the cleaner end of those swings. They beat Jacob Deavers and Chris Deavers 21-8, then followed with a 21-4 win over Austin Rankin and Chad Welcher, two results that showed they were not simply surviving the draw but controlling it. In a novice doubles format, that kind of scoreline usually comes from shot selection that does not ask for much more than a makeable first bag and a smart second answer. McClellan and Turner kept forcing opponents to press, and the bracket showed the damage.

The final was tighter, which made the title feel earned rather than inevitable. Shawn Ramsey and Rebekah Snead pushed McClellan and Turner to a 21-17 championship finish, the sort of score that often appears when the last team standing finally meets a pair that will not hand away frames. McClellan and Turner still held their nerve and closed the match, turning a strong run into a regional title.

The rest of the bracket backed up the same point. Michael Williams and Kyle Lauffer, Mike Seekford and Thomas Dindinger, William Beaghan and Shawn Feldes, Claude Craig and Kenny Smoot, and Tyler Woods and Gary Blackwell all logged early wins, which made this a deeper novice doubles field than a casual local stop. That is what gave McClellan and Turner’s run some weight: they beat teams that had already survived pressure points of their own.

The American Cornhole Organization treats Regionals as local, points-earning events, and a team’s eight best finishes count toward final World Ranking Points. With the ACO World Championships of Cornhole 21 scheduled for July 20-25, 2026, in Owensboro, Kentucky, even a novice doubles title carries more than one weekend of value. Under standard cornhole rules, first to 21 wins, and McClellan and Turner proved that in a bracket like this, the team that avoids the ugly frame usually gets the last word.