Each shot could spell elimination. One momentary lapse of focus, one slight mistake might make the difference between victory or defeat.

It is the kind of pressure that could doom most athletes but not archer Joey Hunt. The 16-year-old Minot resident and Poland Regional High School senior seems to thrive in that situation.

“I usually shoot pretty good when I’m under pressure,” said Hunt. “It’s real good when you finally shoot the shot, and everybody cheers behind you. You go back, and they’re giving you high fives and stuff.”

Hunt faced that pressure earlier this month at the Junior World Archery Championships in Turkey. Hunt won gold both individually and as a team. During the elimination round, he had to win a shoot-off to advance.

“I was behind him by two points at the beginning of the match and at the end, we were tied,” said Hunt. “We had a one-arrow-at-a-time shoot off. We had to get to the third arrow before I beat him on the last arrow.”

That might have meant the downfall for many, but Hunt relishes that moment. In a sport that he says is 90 percent mental, he’s shown he’s mentally tougher than much of his competition.

“A lot of kids don’t understand how mental it is,” said Hunt. “You can be in practice and shoot good but when you get to a tournament, you have to be able to keep yourself together and shoot good.

“You may be able to shoot a perfect shot but shooting a perfect shot everytime is what’s going to take you to the next level.”

Hunt was one of 24 archers that represented the United States in Turkey. Hunt qualified while at the U.S. Team Trials in Colorado in August. They choose three people from each age and equipment division.

“I had a pretty good chance,” said Hunt, who competed in the Cadet Men Compound category. “I was in fourth place going into the match, and I always do real good in the matches. So I ended up qualifying.”

In Turkey, the athletes shot at four different distances during qualifying, 70, 60, 50 and 30 meters. Hunt didn’t shoot as well as he liked in one distance but still managed to qualify in 16th place out of 48 shooters. That gave him a bye in the elimination round. That’s where archers faced off against each other in a single elimination bracket tournament. There were nine rounds, three per day over the five-day event.

“I knew I had a pretty good chance of winning,” said Hunt. “My third match I had to shoot against the first-place seeded person, and I tied the World Record for the score at that distance. He didn’t shoot all that great against me. So really anybody can beat anybody at any given time.”

His 119 score at the 60-meter distance tied the World Record. His aim remained true as he continued through the tournament. After surviving the shoot-off against his Great Britain foe, he won his semifinal match against an archer from New Zealand. He beat an Italian 117-110 to win gold.

“I found that a lot of the people were crumbling under the pressure,” said Hunt. “They couldn’t handle the pressure. I just went up there and shot my shots. I just knew I could shoot better than them. It’s pretty much whoever wants it the most is going to be the one that gets it.”

Hunt also joined Falmouth’s Levi Cyr and Californian Connor Kelley in the team competition and won gold. They cruised past teams from India, Great Britain and Mexico.

“We completely dominated everybody there,” said Hunt. “The first match we shot we set a World Record for the highest score. The match after that we tied it twice. In the gold medal match, we tied it again. In the last round, we had a perfect score. So we were pretty happy about that.”

Hunt has been slinging arrows since he was a kid. His father Joe was a recreational archer and got his son hooked on the sport.

“When I was real little he’d have me shooting in the yard,” said Hunt.

At eight years old, he joined the Junior Olympic Archery Development Program. He began competing and winning.

“I kept shooting better and better,” said Hunt. “The more practice you get, the better you shoot.”

Hunt’s affliction with “Target Panic” was chronicled in a New York Times story in August. When Hunt was nine or 10 he struggled with the scenario many archers face, freezing up or losing control of his bow or his composure.

It is a hurdle that Hunt says he’s cleared. Now he’s aiming for bigger and better things. He practices two or three times a week. He’ll compete during an indoor season this winter and work toward shooting at a higher age group next year.

“The Junior Worlds is pretty much the highest that you can do in my division,” said Hunt, who is thinking of attending the University of Maine to study Mechanical Engineering. “Next year, I have to step it up because I have to shoot against the next older division. After that, you have to shoot against the adults, and that’s the real challenge.”