JROTC Cadets Compete at Fort Benning, GA
The 2023 U.S. Army Junior Rifle Championships kicked off with a clinic hosted by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s International Rifle Team, Fort Benning, GA. The annual competition brings the top junior marksmen from around the United States to Fort Benning, to compete side by side on the very ranges that the Home of Champions train on.
WaHi JROTC had four cadets that were invited and were escorted by their coach, SFC Mark Mebes. This competition is a “big deal.”
-CSM (R) Anthony Marrero
JROTC Rifle Team Competes in the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) in Fort Benning, Georgia
Walla Walla High School’s JROTC Sporter Class Rifle Team traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia to compete in the US Army Junior National Air Rifle Championships on January 20 and 21, 2023. The match, hosted and sanctioned by the Army Marksmanship Unit, is the culminating event of a selection process that began for WAHI shooters in October when they hosted the regional qualifier on their home range. During the selection process, teams competed in local and regional rifle matches that determined their national ranking. As the program concluded, the top 25 ranked teams in the US were invited to the national title contest.
“We don’t often qualify for this venue” Said WAHI Rifle Coach Mark Mebes “We shoot this qualifier very early in our season, and we generally have very little training under our belts at that point.”
Due to the return of several veteran sporter class shooters, the Blue Devils began their season in a stronger position than usual, turning in a qualifying score that ended up ranking them as the #25 team to shoot the qualifier.
“We literally qualified by a single point” Said Rifle Team Captain Ben Nelson “But the upside is that we did a whole lot of training and the team we sent to Georgia was a lot stronger than they had been back in October.”
That team, consisting of Cadet Command Sergeant Major Gerardo Soto, Cadet Master Sergeant Clayton Johnson, Cadet Lieutenant Aviella Wilson and Cadet First Sergeant Chanze Martz arrived in Fort Benning with a considerable amount of match experience and a determination to raise their national ranking.
“There is a different intensity here than most high school matches” Mebes said “The Army Marksmanship Unit generally trains more than half of the shooting athletes that represent the US internationally in all of the shooting sports. Talking and interacting with these resident athletes puts students in a different frame of mind. It really changes their focus.”
Targets are shot from the prone, standing and kneeling positions with each position taking a little over 30 minutes and matches generally lasting a little under 2 hours. Time is allotted for rebuilding parts of the rifle between positions and shots are allowed in each position for sighting in. Shooters shot 20 scored shots in each position, each shot worth 10 points. Each day a shooter fired a course equaling 600 possible points.
On the first day of the match, Soto claimed WAHI’s highest score with a 525, matching his personal record. The team finished the day on a total of 2055, putting them in 12th place among the teams at the match.
On the second day, the team was led by its newest member, Johnson, who shattered his personal record of 512 the day before by producing a 538 which included a pair of 95’s in prone and a kneeling set of 92 and 93 respectively. The team ended the day on a 2093, setting a WAHI sporter team school record, and moving up in the standings to claim 11th place nationally.
“I know we surprised a lot of people here” Said Mebes after the match “We qualified here in 25th place, but we beat over half of the teams that beat us to get here.”
WAHI’s sporter team returned home to complete one more week of training before both rifle teams leave for Utah to compete in the Army JROTC National Championship during the first week of February.
