2018-2019 High School Rifle Team Season

As some of you know, I coach a high school rifle team. The team and league are Coed and use competition grade air rifles at 10 meters. My team uses Walthers, every other team for the most part uses Anshutz and Beeman rifles.

I had some concerns going in mostly due to my health issues but they proved to be unfounded. I just refused to let it stress me out and did my best to relax during the matches.

The kids were great, I announced there would be cuts from the roster through try outs for the first time as I wanted to keep the team smaller and more manageable. I had some issues last year that I didn't want to continue. I carried 32 kids all season and it was just too many. This year I set the limit at 24 and wound up with 21 as they filtered themselves out. By end of season I was down to 15 which was an awesome number. That's where the majority of the other teams always are.

I had a very young crew this year. No seniors, three juniors with experience and two sophomores with experience. No others had competed prior to this season. These five are capable of winning on any given day but if only one has a bad day, it would be tough. We managed to get through the first half of the season with only three losses and finished much stronger in the second have with only one loss. Finished the season in third place with a 10-4 record. I had the top shooter in the league, female, the third highest shooter in the leage, female and the 9th highest shooter in the league, male, for three All Stars. In the Individuals tournament, two of my girls finished 2nd and 4th. And the team combined score took 2nd place. In the Pairs Tournament, my top A division (experienced) pair, girls, took first place with a combined score of 398 and 36 center hits out of a possible 400 and 40 center hits. One girl shot 200 and 20 to lead the entire field for the day. In the B division (new shooters) my top team, again girls, took 2nd place.

So all in all a great season, much better than I had hoped. And the best part is, I'm not losing any of them and all the other teams are losing shooters for next season.

That is awesome, reminds me of my days in a Hawaiian High School (Leilehua, not the other one lol) where I was on the team. Punch out a near 200 pointer set and you just sat back and watched the other shooters sweat it out. When my dad got transferred from Schofield Bks to Ft Devens in the middle of that year, it hurt.

My girl, the number one shooter in the league, shot a 200 2x target in the first round of the Individuals tournament. It held until the final round when another girl shot a 200 with 4x. The centers were fewer in this tournament due to being paper targets and hand scored. The Pairs tournament was electronically scored and center shots only had to take out the center dot. Hand scoring they have to be nearly perfectly centered. So she was sweating it out for about 2 1/2 hours.

Great to hear of your success this year.

Thank You for doing this helpful Coaching. We need more folks helping folks to learn the Hobby and be safe.
Good Luck

Later 42rocker

That has got to be a very rewarding pursuit. Well done.