WaHi JROTC Rifle Teams Compete at Army Service Match in Utah
Walla Walla High School’s JROTC Rifle Teams traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, February 7-11, 2024 for the Army JROTC Service Rifle Championship. Over 120 of the top qualifying high school JROTC marksmen from 13 western states met for the two-day match.
The Utah match is the third of three matches that pitted the top Army JROTC shooters against each other across the United States. Over 400 high school JROTC programs compete in local qualifying matches to gain an invitation to the event. Captained this year by Cadet Captain Micah Vawter, two precision class teams and one sporter class rifle team received invitations this year. A total of 13 WaHi marksmen competed at the event, the most the Blue Devils have ever had invited to a national-level match.
Sporter Team members are Cadet Captain Aviella Wilson, Cadet Captain Wyatt Block, Cadet Lieutenant Claire Wooster, Cadet Sergeant Sarah Nelson, and Cadet Corporal Jaycee Cox.
Precision Team One was comprised of Vawter, Cadet Lieutenant Hannah Goin, Cadet Staff Sergeant Adam Fundak, and Cadet Corporal Claire Calvert.
Precision Team Two consisted of Cadet First Sergeant Saphira Rynaski, Cadet Master Sergeant Chanze Martz, Cadet Corporal Evan Graham, and Cadet Corporal Isabel Dalan.
The match consisted of two days of Olympic-style air rifle shooting with competitors shooting 20 record shots in each of three firing positions; prone, standing, and kneeling. Each shot is worth a total of 10 points, with each shooting a daily score out of a possible 600 each day.
The Blue Devil sporter team produced a team total of 2056 on the first day of the competition, led by sophomore Jaycee Cox, who turned in a career-high score of 539 that had her in 5th place overall, followed by Block at 513 and Nelson at 506. This score marked the Blue Devil sporters’ highest this season, putting them in 8th place among the western teams.
The Precision team finished the first day with a team total of 2261, putting them in 5th place behind the team from Fort Carson, Colorado. Goin held WAHI’s top score of the day with a 577, putting her in 10th place, followed by Vawter and Graham both at 572.
“This is the first time WaHi has ever qualified two precision teams to Nationals,” said rifle team coach Mark Mebes on Friday. “We graduated almost our whole precision team last year, so these cadets have been putting in a lot of work to get where they are at.”
On the second day of competition, the Sporter team bettered their previous day’s score by nearly 20 points at 2075, increasing their placement to 7th overall, led this time by Nelson who shot a career-high 531, followed closely by Cox at 528, Wilson at 513, Wooster at 506 and Block at 503. Cox produced WAHI’s top two-day sporter score, putting her in 11th place overall at the end of the match.
In the precision class, the Blue Devils turned a season-high score on the second day of the match at 2290, raising them to 4th place overall. The team was led again by Goin with a 578, followed closely by Graham shooting a career-high 576, with Vawter and Fundak at 574. Goin’s two-day total put her in 5th place overall going into the final match.
At the close of the team competition on Saturday, WAHI’s Precision Team One ranked 7th nationally with Team Two ranking 8th. WaHi’s Sporter team ranked 16th.
