Teams shine at sectional rifle match
Kyalynn Comer and Ethnee White pose for a photo after the junior rifle match held Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Kootenai Valley Range.
Photo courtesy RYAN COMER
On Feb. 15, the Kootenai Valley Rifle Club, in Bonners Ferry, hosted a sectional rifle match. This is a match where individuals shoot at a local range then their score is sent to the NRA and all sectional scores are accumulated and their national ranking determined. Those results will be posted by the NRA later in the year. This year shooters from Sandpoint and the Kootenai Valley teams were represented.
The first match of the day was a junior smallbore rifle match and followed by a junior air rifle match. A junior is anyone under 21 years old.
The small-bore match was shot indoors using a single-shot .22 caliber rifle at a target 50 feet away. To score a 10 the competitor must hit a dot not much larger than the period at the end of this sentence.
Ten competitors would shoot two targets in each of the prone, standing, and kneeling positions using iron sights. A possible 600 points was the goal.
Kyalynn Comer of Kootenai Valley earned match winner honors with a score of 523. This was an improvement of 25 points over the previous year. Ethnee White of Sandpoint was second with a total of 512. Emmett Lowman of Sandpoint finished in third with a final of 508. Lowman would best his Sandpoint teammate Alora Rasor by one center shot. Comer, and Rasor, represented the intermediate-junior class (15-17 years old). White and Lowman the junior class (18-20 years old).
Other notable achievements were shot by Paige Sartell of Kootenai Valley who was match winner in the prone position, Comer was top in the standing position and Rasor was match winner in kneeling. Wren Tye of the Kootenai Valley team took third overall in kneeling and Ilena Wenzel of Kootenai Valley was fourth in standing.
Next was the air rifle match, shooting in the standing position at 33 feet with competition grade air rifles. This year, the Kootenai Valley team again took the first three places. Comer would again be the match winner, followed by Sartell and Andrew Gardner for second and third places.
If you are interested in learning more about, or returning to, the sport of competitive rifle shooting, contact Don Jordan at 208-610-0226.