In November 2009 postal targets started pouring into the CMP North Headquarters from 240 Army JROTC units across the United States and U.S. military holdings around the world. With those targets were the hopes of 2,000 cadets trying to advance to the Army JROTC Three-Position Air Rifle Service Championship held in Port Clinton, Ohio, on 18-20 February 2010. This event is part of a three tier championship series to determine the JROTC National Champions. The top shooters from the Army JROTC Championship will join the top qualifiers from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Championships at CMP South in Anniston, Alabama 25-27 March 2010 for the JROTC Three-Position Air Rifle National Championship. This grueling test begins with the postal competition, and of the 2,000 Army cadets who posted scores, only 194 qualified to compete at the Army JROTC Service Championship.
Once this select group was identified in December, shooters started making arrangements to travel to CMP North to go shoulder-to-shoulder in a two-day 3x20 aggregate, three-position air rifle competition. From this event both teams and individuals advancing to the National Championship were determined. It was ultimately up to the shooters, and the field was very strong this year making for an excellent competition.
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A total of 194 Army JROTC air rifle shooters traveled to Camp Perry hoping to earn a spot to advance to the JROTC National Air Rifle Championship which will be held later this week.
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In the sporter class only 1.1 points separated first and second place finishers in the individual competition. It took a strong final from Tyler Ferguson of Ozark High School in Missouri to overtake his teammate, Tessa Howard for the gold medal. Howard entered the final in the lead with an 1115-40 to Ferguson’s second place qualifying score of 1109-40. But Ferguson started the final strong, shooting 10’s in his first two shots and finishing with the highest sporter final of the day, a 91.8. This gave him just enough lead to edge out his teammate. Rounding out the top three was Tyler Rico of Flowing Wells High School from Arizona. This is Rico’s first year shooting JROTC three-position air rifle, but he is no stranger to excelling at national level competitions at Camp Perry. Rico is an outstanding highpower shooter, winning the National Trophy Junior Service Rifle Championship in 2009 along with several other awards. He earned his Distinguished Rifleman Badge in 2007 to become one of the youngest shooters to ever earn the Badge. He is now quickly accumulating points for his Junior Distinguished Badge, and has the potential to join a select group of shooters who are Double Distinguished.
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Arizona junior shooter Tyler Rico finished third overall in the sporter class. Rico has competed at Camp Perry before on the Highpower Rifle Ranges during the National Trophy Rifle Matches.
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Ferguson, Howard and Rico finished the match with a 1200.8, 1199.7 and an 1190.7 respectively. All three will advance to the JROTC National Championship along with Christian Klinkhammer of Auburn High School in Illinois, Robert Rousey of Killeen High School in Texas, Amber Smith of Wythe High School in Virginia, David Brown of Grissom High School in Alabama and 2009 JROTC Individual National Champion William Eades III of CE Byrd High School in Louisiana.
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Tessa Howard of Ozark High School in Missouri finished second overall in the sporter class. She will also advance to the JROTC National Championship with her teammates.
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Before the final even began, Ferguson and Howard had locked in a slot at the National Championship as firing members of the top team in the Army sporter match, they were joined by Lacie Norris and Cody Thompson to shoot a combined 4328-130 team score. 1SG Terry Thompson’s team defended their 2009 Army Service Championship, and improved on last year’s score of 4290-135. For winning the 2010 Army JROTC Service Championship, the team was presented with a Crosman Challenger 2009 donated by Crosman Air Guns. Also qualifying for the JROTC National Championship was Daleville High School in Alabama, RL Paschal High School in Texas and Brandon High School in Mississippi, who finished second, third and fourth respectively.
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Tyler Ferguson of Ozark High School prepares for the sporter final. |
The Army precision class individual championship held a little less drama, with Richard Calvin of Siegel High School in Tennessee maintaining his first place position throughout the final. He entered the final with an 1179-92 and shot a 100.8 final to win with a 1279.8 and a 7.9-point lead. With this score he earned an Army JROTC National Record for (individual 3x20 by shooting a 592-47 on the first day of competition). Jennifer Armendariz of Horizon High School in Texas claimed second after entering the final in third place behind Bryan Zavala of Central Catholic High School in Texas. Zavala had edged out Armendariz with center shots in the qualification rounds, shooting 1173-80 to her 1173-75. But it was Armendariz who finished strong shooting a 98.9 final to Zavala’s 97.5 to finish second with a 1271.9 over his 1270.5. All three will have their eye on the JROTC National Championship this week and will be joined by at-large individual qualifiers David Hall of Daleville High School in Alabama, Sarah Adams of Hohenfels High School in Germany, Aubrey Dahlke of Madras High School in Oregon and Christina Lowry of Patch High School in Germany.
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Richard Calvin of Siegel High School (Tennessee) was the Army JROTC Service Precision Individual Champion. Calvin also led his team to win the Army JROTC Service Precision Team Champion.
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Determining the gold medal for the precision individual champion might not have come down to the wire, but for the precision teams it was a different story. Only five-points separated first and second place, second and third place were separated by seven-points, and only one-point made the difference between third and fourth place. It was a nail-biter for the coaches as scores added up throughout the match, but in the end MSG Jim Thurston saw his Siegel High School team come out on top. The group was lead by Calvin’s 1179-92 who was joined by teammates Maya Arredondo, 1161-70, John Carter, 1151-56 and Teodor Ilkov, 1100-35 for a team score of 4591-253.
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The 2010 Army JROTC Service Championship Precision Team was Siegel High School coached by MSG Jim Thurston.
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An interesting side note in the match came from the Mangan family from Walhalla High School in South Carolina. Team coach, COL Kevin Mangan had the unique opportunity to have three of his children on the four person team. It will be the only time that Joshua, a senior, Seth, a sophomore, and Rachel, a freshman, will have the opportunity to compete together at the Service Championship.
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Pictured above are members of the Mangan family, Joshua, Rachel and Seth. They are coached by their dad, COL Kevin Mangan.
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Congratulations to all the competitors and coaches at the 2010 Army JROTC Three-Position Air Rifle Service Championship. Thank you to everyone who made the event a success, and good luck to those advancing to the Nationals. For complete results please visit,
http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_matchResult.cgi?matchID=5393. For photos you can visit the CMP's new photo gallery web site at
http://cmp1.zenfolio.com/ or you can see images taken by Vogel USA at http://vogelusa.com/.
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