JROTC Rifle Team at Western Regional Army JROTC Championship
Walla Walla High School’s JROTC Rifle Teams traveled to Utah during the week of February 17th for the Army JROTC Western Regional Rifle Championship. Nearly 200 of the top qualifying high school Army ROTC marksmen representing almost 40 teams from across 13 western states met at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy for the two-day match.
The Western match is the second of three matches that pitted the top Army JROTC shooters against each other vying for honors and an invitation to the All Service JROTC National Championship in March. Over 400 high school JROTC programs compete in local qualifying matches to gain an invitation to the event. The teams, captained this year by Cadet Captain Evan Graham received invitations for both the precision class and sporter class rifle teams. For the first time in WaHi history, two sporter teams and two precision teams gained invitations from the local qualifier, totaling 18 Blue Devil marksmen in the competition. Sporter Team members were Cadet Major Claire Wooster, Cadet Captain Saphira Rynaski, Cadet Corporal Jaycee Cox, Cadet Staff Sergeant Wyatt Postlewait, Cadet First Sergeant Melissa Villegas, Cadet Command Sergeant Major Kairi Kincheloe, Cadet Lieutenant Troy Beckmann, Cadet First Sergeant Damien Smiley, Cadet Corporal Jesse Vawter and Cadet Private Noah Hein.
Serving on the Precision Teams were Graham, Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Hannah Goin, Cadet Captain Sarah Nelson, Cadet Lieutenant Claire Calvert, Cadet Lieutenant Noah Kaheaku, Cadet Lieutenant Bel Dalan, Cadet Lieutenant Sofie Edwards, and Cadet Lieutenant Evelyn Wolf.
The match consisted of two days of Olympic-style air rifle shooting with competitors shooting 20 record shots in each of three firing positions; kneeling, prone, and standing. 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 One produced one of the highest scores this season on the first day, led by Cox with a 537. Postlewait posted a 528, followed by Rynaski at 517 and Wooster who finished the day on a 512. Their team score of 2094 put them in 3rd place out of the 29 teams present.
Precision Team One finished the first day with a team total of 2289, also putting them in third place, close behind the team from Fountain-Fort Carson, Colorado. Nelson held WaHi’s top score of the day with a 585, a career high for her which included a perfect 199 in prone and a 196 in kneeling.
“I made up my mind today that I was going to trust my positions and enjoy myself,” said Steinle on Saturday, “I promised myself that I wasn’t going to overthink my shots.”
At the end of the first day, Steinle held the number two spot in the precision class, with teammate Calvert close behind with a 579.
On the second day of competition, the sporter team turned in 2044, led again by Cox at 525. Postlewait shot a 523 followed by Rynaski at 510 and Wooster with a 498. Though lower than the previous day’s score, the team managed to hold onto the bronze position ahead of Pueblo West High School by 15 points.
“This is our highest sporter team placement at this match since 2012,” Said WaHi Rifle Team Coach Mark Mebes. “This team has been on fire this year, breaking the school record twice already and qualifying more teams for national ranking than ever before. We had freshmen here that shot this match with averages over 500 each day, which bodes well for the future of this program.”
In the precision class, the Blue Devils turned in a slightly lower score on the second day of the match at 2285. Calvert led the team on day two at 578, Though she had an equipment malfunction that cost her 10 points in the kneeling position, Nelson finished the day with WaHi’s second-highest score at 576, followed by Goin at 570, and Graham at 561. Kaheaku finished the day on a career-high of 575. Nelson’s score on Saturday dropped her from 2nd to 6th place, while still qualifying her to shoot in the final match.
At the matches’ conclusion, the Blue Devil Precision Team took hold of 3rd place in the west and 5th place nationally.
The championship concluded with a final match on Saturday afternoon. In the final, the 8 shooters with the highest two-day totals traded blows for a one-hour-long course of fire to determine final placement and medals.
“This course for the final is fairly new,” Said Mebes on Saturday, “It is meant to mimic an Olympic final, with 15 shots in kneeling, 15 shots in prone, and a series of 10 shots in that standing position. The final concludes with competitors then trading shot for shot in standing and the lowest score being eliminated on each shot until there is only one shooter.”
Nelson entered the final in 6th place, and throughout the course of fire worked her placement as high as 5th place, before dropping back to being the 3rd person eliminated to finish with the 6th place medal.
At the conclusion of this match, the Blue Devil Precision Team was waiting to see if their placement would hold to receive an invitation for 4 shooters to attend the All Service JROTC National Championship in Ohio in March.
