The shooting sports team had a great weekend at the US Army Marksmanship Junior Nationals at Fort Benning, GA. All shooters should be very proud – if they didn’t shoot a match competition personal best they were able to work through some difficult issues and come very close to it.
The sporter team came in 5th place overall, after two days of shooting, just missing 4th place by a couple 10x’s and just out of 3rd place by 7 points. From qualification, placing 22nd, the team gained 83 points. Howie placed 2nd the first day and 3rd the 2nd day with an overall placing of 3rd. Heath shot a personal best of 522 and did an outstanding job of dealing with the pressure. Decker was right behind Heath with a personal best of 518, after having a little accident – knocking his pellet tray over and shooting a sub par shot. The high point for Bailey was shooting a 540 and also having the 2nd most 10x’s in the competition with 42. Only one other person shot more than 40. Our youngest shooter, Mollie, at age 11 had several personal bests in multiple positions as well.
On the precision side the Hellgate team put together two days of great scores with Jonna shooting a personal best and breaking 600 with a 602.7 – great job Jonna.
All shooters showed great poise while competing under some very stressful situations.
The US Army Marksmanship Unit, with the CMP Organization, put together a great tournament as well as being a great location. The kids were able to see some of the shotgun and small arms ranges as well as witnessing several soldiers training on parachute drops from the jump tower on base.
