Carson's Mason strikes bronze in X Games 14

Appeal Staff Report

After nearly winning a bronze medal in one event, Carson City's Mike Mason came away with the bronze in the Moto X Freestyle on Saturday in X Games 14 in Los Angeles.

Mason and Jeremy Stenberg went 1-1 in their head-to-head battles for bronze on Saturday. After Stenberg beat Mason for the bronze in Moto X Speed and Style, Mason returned the favor by beating Stenberg for the bronze in Freestyle.

Mason also had two impressive quarterfinals wins, beating Travis Pastrana in Speed and Style and No. 1 seed Nate Adams in Freestyle.

After beating Adams, Mason lost to Mat Rebaud in the semifinals as Rebaud finished with a score of 89.80 and Mason finished with an 86.20. Jeremy Lusk went on to beat Rebaud 92.40-89.00 for the gold.

In the Speed and Style, Stenberg essentially beat Mason for the bronze by less than one-half of a second. In the quarterfinals, Mason beat Pastrana by nearly six seconds on his way to beating Pastrana with a total score of 89.50 to 88.95.

Mason then lost to Ronnie Renner in the semifinals. In the bronze medal match, Mason had a better score than Stenberg in the Style portion, 44.50-42.50.

But Stenberg beat Mason in the Speed portion by 2.51 seconds and that was good enough for the bronze as he finished with a total score of 92.40 to Mason's 91.99.

Ironically, both Stenberg's and Mason's total scores were better than the scores posted by Kevin Johnson and Renner in the finals. Johnson beat Renner for the gold 90.70-87.75.