September/October 2011: Volume 19, Number 5 - USA Shooting

A
record breaking 223 precision air
rie athletes squared o at Camp
Perry with the rst day starting
on June 27 and culminating with
the second day relays and nals on June
28. e CMP range team was organized
and supported by well choreographed
collegiate summer camp instructors who
did everything from registration, equipment
checks, range ocers, range clean-up and
spectator seating.
is year the South African National
Schools Shooting Union (SANSSU) sent
their best athletes to compete shoulder
to shoulder with this year’s 3PAR Junior
Olympic Championship athletes from all
over the U.S. e CMP identied a U.S. team
to compete with the South African team in
a friendship match which was won by the
U.S. team. e South African Team made
an excellent showing, considering their long
trip to Camp Perry. Not to mention that they
arrived too late at Camp Perry the rst night
to get their hut assignments and spent their
rst night sleeping in their rental mini-vans
(or attempted to sleep that night).
Day 1
e rst day started with high
expectations and you could feel the tension
in the air. Kelsey McHugh led the rst day
with a perfect 200 points in prone and
followed it with 196 points in both standing
and kneeling for a total of 592 points.
Samantha Bullard of the Magic City Gun
Club in Alabama was only one point behind
rst with 591 points. Patrick Sunderman of
the Minnesota Centershots came in third
with 591 points. South Africa’s Bartholomeus
Pienaar was fourth with 590 points.
Day 2
e second day was full of surprises.
Connor Davis of the Shelby County High
School Marine Corps JROTC in Kentucky
jumped from tenth to rst place by shooting
199 points in prone, 199 points standing and
196 points kneeling! Mitchell Van Patten of
the Meridian Optimist Jr. Rie Club in Idaho
jumped from seventh to second place by
improving his rst day score by two points.
Heather Kirby, also of the Shelby County
High School Marine Corps JROTC, went
from eighth to third place by improving her
rst day score by only one point.
Sonya May of the Taunton Wolfpack
in Massachusetts made a huge leap from
y-fourth place to fourth place on day two,
shooting 579 points on day one to shooting
a 590 points on day two. Unfortunately it
wasn’t enough for her to make the nals.
Bullard maintained second place by
consistently shooting well both days.
Aggregate and Finals
In the aggregate, the top eight for nals
were Connor Davis, Samantha Bullard,
Daniel Lowe, Mitchell Van Patten, Heather
Kirby, Kelsey McHugh, Jedidiah Huie and
Patrick Sunderman respectively.
Davis went into the nal with a one
point lead over Bullard. He was able to hold
his lead aer the nal ten shots, but Bullard
closed the gap to within six-tenths of a point,
claiming and holding on to second place.
Lowe shot an excellent nal coming
from eighth place and taking third place,
only three-tenths of a point ahead of Van
Patten and Kirby who had a shoot-o for
fourth place.
Van Patten broke the fourth place tie by
shooting a 9.9 point shot, just one-tenth of a
point better than Kirby. e gold medal went
to Davis, silver medal went to Bullard and
Lowe took the bronze in a very exciting, ever
changing, shot-by-shot nal.
e talent at the 3PAR precision
competition was exceptional with 84 out
of 223 competitors posting 1150 points or
better. Half of the competitors posted 1145
points or better. e precision athletes that
attended the 3PAR JO Championship are
denitely the best in the country which made
for an exciting and tough competition.
USA Shooting wants to thank all the