Cascade Mountain League JROTC Two-State Championship Rifle Match
Walla Walla High School’s JROTC Precision Rifle Team captured the JROTC Cascade Mountain League Two-State Championship on March 11, 2023, in a rifle match hosted at North Salem High School in Oregon. The Blue Devils swept the precision class, bringing home the gold, silver, and bronze medals.
86 of the top competitive JROTC high school marksmen from Washington and Oregon converged on the North Salem High School rifle range to compete in the championship match of the 2022-2023 ROTC season.
In the sporter class, the team championship went to Lebanon High School from Oregon, with Walla Walla coming in 2nd place, shooting one of their highest scores this season at 2062. The team was led by Cadet Lieutenant Aviella Wilson, who fired a career-high score of 531. Cadet Command Sergeant Major Gerardo Soto turned in the team’s second-highest score with a 516, followed by Cadet Sergeant Saphira Rynaski at 510 and Cadet First Sergeant Chanze Martz with a 505.
“I have been trying to break 530 all this season,” said Wilson on Saturday after the match. “It felt so good to do it at the league championship.”
At the end of record fire on Saturday Wilson’s score put her in 4th place and Soto in 8th, placing them in the final shoot-off of the season.
In the Sporter Class Final, the eight highest-scoring marksmen face off in a 10-shot competition that decides final season ranking and placement. Wilson’s performance early on in the final had her moving up in placement until her 3rd and 4th shot dropped her back down into her original 4th-place position which she was able to defend through the close of the final. The final ended as it began, with Alivia Griffiths from Lebanon, Oregon capturing the league title by 5 points over Spokane’s Clara Yang.
The Blue Devil Precision squad turned out a solid performance, posting 2273 out of 2400 points to clinch the championship over long-time rivals North Salem High School by a comfortable 150 points. Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Kaden Kerr’s score led the team with 573 out of 600. Kerr finished the regular competition in 1st place ahead of teammates Cadet Captain Raquelle Justice at 568 and Cadet Major Benjamin Nelson’s 567. All 5 Blue Devil precision marksmen made it into the top 8 and competed in the league final for the overall title.
In the precision final, after 10 rounds of extremely competitive play, Justice fired a career-high of 101.6 edging into the gold medal position 1.1 points ahead of Kerr, whose final score of 95.3 claimed silver just 7/10ths of a point ahead of Nelson who retained 3rd. Teammates Cadet Captain Tristan Scott finished in 4th place and Cadet Major Maximus Malone ended the season in 7th.
With the Washington and Oregon JROTC rifle season at an end, the Blue Devil Rifle Teams shifted focus to the regional and national stage for a series of matches. The precision team, with a 5th place ranking in Army JROTC, traveled to Ohio March 21-26 for the All Service National Championship. The sporter and precision teams also trained to compete for a regional CMP title in Salt Lake City in early April.
Additionally, Justice received an invitation to the Olympic Training Center for Junior Olympic nationals in April where she competed against some of the top high school and college-age shooters in the US for the Junior Olympic title and a place on USA Shooting’s Junior National Team.
