The first of three championship weekends took place 12-14 February at Camp Perry, Ohio when the Civilian Marksmanship Program played host to the 2009 National Army JROTC Air Rifle Championship. 215 individual high school age Cadets representing 65 different schools from the Continental USA, Alaska and Department of Defense Schools in Europe competed in the event.

This was the second stage of competition for these Cadets, and the top shooters and teams from this weekend qualified to move on to the JROTC National Championship, which will take place at Fort Benning, Georgia in March. There the top Cadets from the Army JROTC Championship will compete shoulder-to-shoulder with the top Cadets from all four JROTC Service Branches.

The road to the championship began last fall as 2,200 Army JROTC Cadets from 275 Army JROTC Units participated in the JROTC postal competition. From that initial group, only 215 Cadets qualified for the 2009 National Army JROTC Air Rifle Championship, roughly 10% of the Army JROTC Cadets who participated in the postal competition. Making it to this stage of the competition was a significant accomplishment for all the Cadets who competed this past weekend.

The event itself was a two-day three-position air rifle 3x20 competition, broken into Sporter and Precision rifle classes. Both Team and Individual Champions were honored on the basis of the total aggregate score from the two days. To determine the Individual Champions, the top eight shooters from the two-day competition in each rifle class shot a 10-shot final on Saturday that was added to their aggregate score to determine the winners from each class.

This was the first major junior championship held in CMP’s new Camp Perry Competition Center, which opened in June 2008. This state of the art air gun facility features 80-electrionic firing points. With this technology CMP was able to post all competitors’ results live on the Internet. But this technology now goes far beyond simply posting scores on the web. For the first time anywhere, not only the scores, but also live target images of the shooters in the competition were displayed on the Internet. This meant that anyone anywhere in the world could see the exact same display screen as the competitors on the range and follow their progress live, shot-by-shot, from their personal computers. Several schools took advantage of this new technology, and set-up projection screens in classrooms so that students could watch their classmates compete. In all, there were over 17,000 web hits on the 2009 National Army JROTC Air Rifle Championship results page during the two days of competition.

There were several impressive performances this weekend in both team and individual categories. One of those impressive performances came from the Ozark HS team from Ozark, Missouri that won the 2009 National Army JROTC Sporter Team Championship. This is one of a string of championships that Ozark HS has won in the last 12 months. They were the 2008 Army JROTC Western Region Champions, the 2008 JROTC National Champions and the 2008 National Junior Olympic Sporter Team Champions. That alone is impressive, but what is remarkable about this program is that all of the shooters from the 2008 championship teams have graduated. This meant that Ozark’s coach, 1SG Terrance Thompson, had to prepare a completely new group of shooters to compete this season. Some of the team’s preparation can be traced back to last summer, when three of the four current firing team member attended a CMP Summer Camp at Camp Perry. Their training and hard work appears to have paid off, as Ozark HS won the 2009 Army JROTC Championship with a commanding 46-point lead over second place Killeen HS of Killeen, Texas. Ozark HS team firing members were Kyrstin Karr, 1093, Evan Matlock, 1072, Lacie Norris, 1069 and Tyler Ferguson, 1056 for a team total 4290.

Defending 2008 National JROTC Sporter Individual Champion, Xentri Garza of RL Paschal HS in Fort Worth, Texas, claimed the Individual Army JROTC Championship in the Sporter class. Garza entered the Final with an 11-point lead, and remained untouchable by shooting an impressive 96.1 final to finish with a 1206.1 aggregate. Dustyn Ruble of Alhambra HS in Phoenix, Arizona finished second with a 1192.9 aggregate and Robert Rousey of Killeen HS in Killeen, Texas finished third with a 1189.4 aggregate.

In the Precision class the 2008 Western Region Army JROTC Precision Team Champions, Del Valle HS from El Paso, Texas, once again took the top spot under the direction of LTC Gary Crafton. Firing team members Juan Arceo, 1164, Lorenzo Hernandez Jr, 1161, Juan Gaucin, 1154 and William Mares, 1115, combined for a 4594 total and a 10-point lead over second place finisher Siegel HS of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The top individual in the Precision Class was David Hall from Daleville HS in Daleville, Alabama. Hall maintained his 10-point qualification lead by shooting a 99.4 final to finish with a 1277.4 aggregate score. Second place went to Aubrey Dahlke of Madras HS in Madras, Oregon who shot a 1267 aggregate, and third went to Kelly Audet of Burke HS in Omaha, Nebraska who shot a 1264.6 aggregate.

The following Army JROTC Unit teams and individual Cadets have qualified to compete in the 2009 National JROTC Championship on 26-28 March at For Benning, GA. In the Sporter Class, Ozark HS, Killeen HS, Bogalusa HS from Bogalusa, Louisiana and Buckhorn HS from New Market, Alabama qualified in the team category. At-large individual Sporter qualifiers were Xentri Garza of RL Paschal HS, Dustyn Ruble of Alhambra HS, Amanda Aguilera of RL Paschal HS, William Eades III of CE Byrd HS in Shreveport, Louisiana, Kristen Lindley of Clinton, HS in Clinton, South Carolina and Nicholas Uribe of Pharr-San Juan-Alamo of San Juan, Texas.

Teams qualifying for the JROTC Nationals in the Precision Class were Del Valle HS, Siegel HS, Spanish Springs HS of Sparks, Nevada and Marmion Academy of Batavia, Illinois. Precision at-large qualifiers were David Hall of Daleville HS, Aubrey Dahlke of Madras HS, Kelly Audet of Burke HS, Bryan Zavala of Central Catholic HS in San Antonio, Texas, Garret Morris of Enterprise HS in Enterprise, Alabama and David Gregory III of Blackman HS in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Congratulations to all the Cadets and thank you to all the JROTC instructors, volunteers, parents and supporters for making this event a success. To see the final scores from the Army JROTC Championship or to watch live results from the next two championship weekends, go to the CMP website at http://odcmp.com. Click on “JROTC Championship Results" at the top center of the page. For a direct link to final results go to, http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_matchResult.cgi?matchID=4376, to see photos from the event go to, http://www.odcmp.com/Photos/09/ArmyARChamp/index.htm.

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