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Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia Students Victorious in Navy JROTC Championship

By Gary Anderson, Director of Civilian Marksmanship


The 2005 Navy JROTC Air Rifle Championship took place at the Army Marksmanship Unit’s Pool Range Complex at Fort Benning, Georgia. The Pool Range has a complete installation of 10-meter electronic targets.
The winning teams in the 2005 Navy JROTC Championship at Fort Benning, Georgia hailed from Georgia and North Carolina. The individual sporter and precision class champions represented NJROTC units at schools in Florida and North Carolina. 160 NJROTC cadets from as far away as California and Washington state were selected to represent their schools and JROTC units at the Fort Benning competition on 18-19 April and the top finishers in this championship now advance to the National JROTC Championship, which also takes place at Fort Benning during the same week, on 22-23 April.


Brunswick High School, Brunswick, Georgia won the precision class team championship. The award presenter is SFC Jason Parker, a USAMU rifle shooter and world champion who was the guest speaker at the NJROTC Championship awards Banquet. Brunswick team members were Tiffany Lee, Jessica Ray, Christopher Atkins and Cody Stevens.
Brunswick High School from Brunswick, Georgia repeated as the precision class team champion, but this year it was as close as it can get. Henry County High School, also from Georgia, tied Brunswick at 2260 x 2400. Brunswick won the tiebreaker based on the total of the last 10 shots kneeling for the four team members. Just behind those two teams was another Georgia team, Luella High School, at 2252. In fact, the first five precision class teams were all from Georgia. The precision class dominance by Georgia teams stems from the Georgia High School Rifle program where all teams shoot in the same class and where it is necessary to use precision equipment to be competitive.

Alexandra Shaffer, a high school junior from Nease High School and St. Augustine, Florida won the precision class individual championship in the 2005 NJROTC Championship with a score of 581.
The individual precision class finish was nearly as close. Alexandra Shaffer, a 17-year-old junior at Nease High School in St. Augustine, Florida gained a hard-fought one-point victory over Jessica Ray, a 17-year-old senior from Brunswick, Georgia, 581 to 580. Shaffer had a strong 193 standing enroute to her win. Ray fired on the fifth and last relay and needed a 198 kneeling to win. She started with a 99, but dropped a second point in her last series for a 98 finish. Her kneeling score was still the best kneeling total in the match.

In the sporter class team competition, King George High School, King George, Virginia fired on the first relay and posted a new NJROTC national team record of 2112, eclipsing the old record of 2091 set by Zion-Benton High School NJROTC in the 2003 National JROTC Championship. Zion-Benton High School, Zion, Illinois won last year’s NJROTC sporter championship and fired on the same relay as King George. Their 2068 score this year was ultimately tied by Oak Harbor High School NJROTC, Oak Harbor, Washington, with Zion-Benton winning second after the tie was broken.

Chris Simmons, a high school junior who represented McDowell High School, North Carolina, won the sporter class title in the 2005 NJROTC Championship with a score of 540.
Chris Simmons, a 17-year-old junior from Marion, North Carolina, who represented McDowell High School NJROTC, fired a 540 score to win the sporter class championship. Christopher Marseglia from Patuxent High School, Maryland and Nathaniel Williamson from King George, Virginia were second and third respectively, at 536 and 534.

Complete results for all competitors in the 2005 Navy JROTC Air Rifle Championship are posted on-line at http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_matchResult.cgi?matchID=805.  Pictures from the 2005 Navy JROTC Air Rifle Championship can be viewed at http://www.odcmp.com/3P/Web/05NJROTCWeb/index.htm.

 

Jessica Ray led the Brunswick, Georgia, High School NJROTC team to a repeat victory in the 2005 NJROTC precision class team championship with her second place individual score of 580.

King George High School, King George, Virginia won the sporter class team championship. The award presenter is Gary Anderson, Director of the CMP. The four firing members of the King George Team were Nathaniel Williamson, Caroline Salisbury, John Simm and Elizabeth Lyon.