Georgia Military College Shooting Bulldogs took to the road this past weekend to compete in the Western Intercollegiate Rifle Conference Championship held at Akron University in Akron, Ohio.
The Cadets that shot to represent GMC consisted of two teams. Team one consisted of Tiffany Williams from Americus, GA, Felicia Early from San Antonio, TX, Ciaran Jones from Eastman, GA, Tyha Morrow from Fayetteville, GA, and Aniya Rivers from Covington, GA. Team two consisted of Levi Baggett from Dawsonville, GA, Stone Grant from Lombard, IL, Gabriel Niles from Bennington, VT, and Colin Pritchett from Erlanger, KY.
The team shot impressively; Tiffany Williams lead the team with a 562 and a seventh-place finish overall in Air Rifle. Williams had an excellent finish for a freshman who has continued to hone her skills throughout the year. Williams also earned 4th place honors overall in the conference for the most improved shooter for the year. GMC earned the recognition of the most improved team across the board for the conference for Air Rifle.
During the Air Rifle competition, two of our shooters ended up having an inter-squad battle. Cadets Early and Rivers battled it out up to the last shot taken by Rivers, had she scored a ten on her final attempt, she would have placed higher than Cadet Early as she had more perfect shots throughout the match. Unfortunately, Cadet Rivers shot a nine on her final shot, which allowed Cadet Early to remain in the lead and higher in the match. Our number one team scored a team score for Air Rifle of 2149, just 128 points behind the winning team, which consisted of Junior and Senior Competitors and 85 points behind the second-place finishing team again consisting of Junior and Senior level competitors. Finally, on our second team for GMC, Cadet Levi Baggett upped his game as he shot his personal best with the 523 on the air Rifle. The team's captain's excellent performance as he competed, having never shot in competition before this year as the season began.
During the small-bore competition Cadet Stone Grant was our best shooter of the day, scoring a 492 for the Shooting Bulldogs. Cadet Tyha Morrow was close with a score of 489. Overall, our number one team scored 1914 in the small-bore for the match, 258 points behind the University of Akron's winning team. GMC also earned the most improved honors in the small-bore for the conference as well.
Coach Clayton stated, "I am most excited about our team earning this type of accolade as it shows they are putting themselves to a task they were initially not very sure about but put forth the effort to increase their skills in the art of shooting every day." "It is not hard to come out and perform at something you already have skills in, but when you start a new task and compete at a fairly high level, that is a significant challenge, and these eight cadets accepted the challenge extremely well."
Overall, Coach Duane Clayton, in his 7th year of coaching the GMC Rifle Team, is "extremely pleased at how far our team has come thus far." The team as a whole progressed nicely up to and through the Conference Championship.
Of the ten team members, only two had shot competitively before, Cadets Williams and Morrow. I am incredibly proud of how well the entire team shot and how they competed. They showed tremendous poise and sportsmanship throughout the match and showed excellent teamwork throughout the trip conducting themselves as a very organized and disciplined team. The team is looking to do even better as they prepare for their final event of the year in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on the weekend of 10-11 April.
