To say Zack Plannick has a world-class skill would be, well, right on target.

Plannick, a Coraopolis native and Montour High School graduate, is an archer who qualified to participate in the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, earlier his month.

Plannick, who will be a junior at the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, Lycoming County, earned a gold medal as a member of Team USA's men's compound team.

"The competition was awesome," said Plannick, 20. "We practiced over there as a team and got to know all the male and female teammates pretty well. We all got to be pretty good friends, so it was pretty cool.

"I didn't do so well in the individual aspect of it, but in the team, we won, so that made it definitely worth the trip. It was the best competition I've ever been to. I though it was awesome, amazing."

Plannick qualified for the World University Games -- a biennual gathering of the world's best college-aged athletes in an array of sports -- by earning All-American status when he led Penn College's archery team to the U.S. Intercollegiate Archery Championships in male recurve and mixed compound events.

These were the 25th World University Games, with more than 6,300 athletes from 142 countries competing.

Along with Team USA archery teammates Steven Gatto and Stephen Schwade, Plannick helped eliminate Serbia in the opening round before one-point wins against Canada and Russia in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively. The U.S. team won the gold medal match July 11 against Mexico, 23-19.

"The match against Serbia was one of the most fun because, the night before, we had gone to the men's basketball game and watched the U.S. beat Serbia by two points," Plannick said. "It was kind of cool watching the basketball team beat Serbia and then us beating Serbia the next day."

In individual men's compound, Plannick qualified 19th in a 44-man field. He then lost in the first round of head-to-head eliminations to an archer from Indonesia.

A manufacturing engineering major at Penn College (which has a nationally recognized archery program), Plannick works under coach Jeff Falconer at Falconer's home in Oakdale. Falconer's daughter, Elissa -- a 2008 West Allegheny graduate who attends Miami University in Ohio -- was on the U.S. women's team.

Falconer was a member of the Team USA women's team compound team that advanced to the bronze medal match but lost to Korea. One of the members of that Korean team, Jung Hee Seo, eliminated Falconer in the round of 32 of the women's individual compound.

Plannick was introduced to the sport by his father and grandfather, who took him hunting and along on local shoots.

"They had bought me a little bow from Wal-Mart and when they'd get up real close, they'd let me shoot," said Plannick, who lists hunting and fishing and other outdoor activities among his hobbies along with archery. "They saw that I liked it."

He kept at it and ultimately was an individual junior national compound bow champion in 2005 and 2006 -- a member of the record-setting U.S. Junior team in Mexico the second year.

"I'll do archery probably until the day I die -- at least until I can't pull a bow back," Plannick said.

"I know it will be more difficult when I get out of school and have a job and a house. But I'll still be doing the fun shoots. There's a shoot in [Las] Vegas every year. I've gone to that four or five times, and it was a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll keep doing things like that."