Rifle Team Comes up Short

Many of you might not be familiar with the sport of competitive small bore (.22) rifle shooting. To explain a little, each team brings 8 marksmen. Each individual shoots 10 scoring targets at each position: prone, standing and kneeling. Each shooter can earn a possible 300 points. To determine the team score, the total score of each team’s 4 top shooters is added together. Whichever team has the most points, wins.

Tonight our young marksmen greatly impressed me with their poise, determination and skill. At the halfway point, with four of our shooters competing against 4 of theirs, we were tied. I had high hopes we would win the day. Last year our score for our opening match was an 885 and this year our young men shot an impressive 924. However, it was not enough to overtake Fishburne’s score of 937. This is an incredibly narrow margin which fills me with confidence as we continue to move forward.

Our scoring marksmen were:
Chandler Wilkie: 252 and best overall
John Mauriello: 229, 5th overall and his personal best over 2 seasons
David Kiesnowski: 225 in his first year on the team so it is his personal best
Aidan Thomas: 218, his personal best over two seasons

The other marksmen rounding out the lineup were:
Jackson Stewart: 207, first year on the team
Jacob Kitchen: 196, personal best over 2 seasons.
Eli Benjamin: 195, first year on the team
Biagio Pugliese: 180, first year on the team