Marksmanship Teams Off To Good Start

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY MAJOR GRIFFITHS McDonald County J.R.O.T.C. placed second in the 2016 Bass Pro Air Rifle Classic in the Sporter Basic division. Pictured are, from left, Skyler Brewer, Malachi Colon, Major Griffiths, Rebecca Clark and Erin Yang.
PHOTO SUBMITTED BY MAJOR GRIFFITHS McDonald County J.R.O.T.C. placed second in the 2016 Bass Pro Air Rifle Classic in the Sporter Basic division. Pictured are, from left, Skyler Brewer, Malachi Colon, Major Griffiths, Rebecca Clark and Erin Yang.

McDonald County's marksmanship class and team coached by Maj. Robert Griffiths, the JROTC senior army instructor, is off to a great start. The class has 17 marksman offered to McDonald County JROTC cadets in the ROTC program and seven first-year marksmen who practice after school.

For the 2016-17 school year, the team has five rifle competitions and four postal matches. The postal match is a unique way of competing against many rifle programs throughout the country. The host school sends the targets to the school participating. Teams then hold the competition at their respective schools and send the targets back where they are then scored and the winners are announced.

On Sept. 30, the McDonald County Marksmanship Team opened the season competing at the Bass Pro competition hosted at Willard High School. McDonald County entered four teams. Three teams of four marksmen each competed in the Open category. McDonald County placed fifth, seventh and 16th.

Our fifth place team was captained by Cadet Mercell, whose team scored 1977 points out of a possible 2400. Cadet Mercell led the team and placed 12th overall, scoring 512 points out of a possible 600.

The Basic team consisted of Skyler Brewer, Rebecca Clark, Malachi Colon and Erin Yang. They participate in the after-school marksmanship class and represented McDonald County in the basic category. This team is made up of first-year marksman only and was captained by Erin Yang, the team's high shooter. Erin scored 368 out possible 600 points. The team earned second place out of 22 teams. The team, as a whole, scored 1291 points out of a possible 2400 points.

All the teams have continued to practice and are raising their scores even more for the next marksmanship meet, a postal match at McDonald County High School on Monday.

Community on 11/03/2016