Shooters from The Armidale School focused on success at the New England District Rifle Association open prize meeting at Spring Ridge on 19 March, coming away with solid placings in the C Grade division.
The 10 students and one staff member comprised the largest team on the day, and shot three matches, the first over 500m then two at 600m.
In the first, Jack Waters achieved a solid score of 50.3 to take out top place, with teammates Sam Marshall (48.3) and Tom Deshon (48.2) placed second and third. Waters’ aim set the tone for the reminder of the day, eventually taking top aggregate score in C Grade across the fixture.
In the second match TAS Shooting Captain Tom Southwell was second overall and Sam Marshall was third, whilst in the final shoot of the day TAS took out the top three spots with Southwell pegging 50.1 and only two centre bullseyes separating Waters and Deshon in second and third.
“It was a good shakeout to start the season and with a mix of experienced and new shooters there is some solid potential for the GPS competition later in the year,” Tom Southwell said.
TAS Shooting master Mr David Lawrence said the team did well in challenging conditions,
“It was very hot with shooters jacketed up with temperatures in the mid-thirties. In particular it was great to see the effort of our newest shooter, Peter Udompitisup from Bangkok, who had only shot targets once before.”
The previous Sunday shooters from TAS joined those from New England Girls’ School and Armidale Rifle Club for their regular shoot at Wollomombi range with former Australian shooter Ben Picton and Queensland representative and TAS Old Boy Rob Bondfield. Shooters received one-to-one coaching with the use of new electronic targets owned by Armidale Rifle Club.
