JROTC Rifle Team at Nationals
244 of the top High School Rifle Marksmen in the US met in Camp Perry, Ohio on the 9th and 10th of July for the Civilian Marksmanship Program National Air Rifle Championship. WaHi’s JROTC Precision Rifle Team qualified for the event, garnering invitations for 5 Blue Devil marksmen to take the national stage to represent their school. This year, shooters qualifying for this match also received invitations to compete in the CMP Open Smallbore National Match. WaHi accepted both invitations, marking the teams' first appearance in over 2 decades at an outdoor national smallbore rifle event.
WaHi RIfle Team CMP Air Rifle (L-R): Vawter, Goin, Rynaski, Calver, Graham
WaHi Rifle Team Captain Cadet Major Micah Vawter led the team of WaHi Precision shooters in this, their 18th match of the season, and the final high school match for Vawter who has been shooting competitively since his freshman year. The precision team, composed of Vawter, Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Hannah Goin, Cadet Captain Evan Graham, Cadet Captain Saphira Rynaski, and Cadet Lieutenant Claire Calvert faced 48 teams from across the US vying for dominance on the national stage.
Preliminary qualifications for this match began last February when the team traveled to Puyallup for the Washington State CMP Championship Match. From there, they advanced to the CMP Western Regional Championship in Salt Lake City, Utah. WaHi’s scores at the match in Utah advanced the teams to the National Championship in Ohio. There they joined the top-ranked shooters in the United States, vying for trophies and honors.
Shooters competed in a course of fire that included 20 shots each from the prone, standing, and kneeling positions. Each shot is worth 10 points for a total match score of 600 points per shooter. On the first day of competition, Vawter led the team with a career-high score of 587, including 198 out of 200 in the prone position, one offhand target that scored a 98, and one nearly perfect kneeling target at 99.
“Micah turned in the performance today that he has been working hard for all year,” commented WaHi Rifle Team Coach Mark Mebes, after the match on Friday. “He has done an outstanding job of leading the team this season. He will be shooting collegiately for Hillsdale College next year, so we are excited to see him perform at the next level.”
As the WaHi team finished their relay, they had racked up 2286 points out of 2400 with Calvert producing the team’s second-highest marks at 571, Graham at 565 and Goin at 563.
On the second day of the match, the Blue Devil squad was led by Goin, who shot 577, including one perfect prone target that scored a 100. Goin’s score was followed by Rynaski with a career-high score of 572, Vawter at 571, and Graham and Calvert both turning 568. The team’s two-day score totaled 4570, placing them 9th overall among the high school teams present in the scholastic category.
Immediately following the indoor air rifle championship, the shooters switched their focus to outdoor small-bore shooting for the remaining 3 days.
The CMP National Smallbore Rifle Championship consisted of one day of practice and two match days in which competitors shot targets at 50 yards with a single-shot bolt action .22 rifles from the kneeling, prone, and standing positions. Identical to the air rifle match in scoring, each shot is worth up to 10 points, with 20 record shots fired from each position for a total of 60 shots and 600 points per match.
