April 11th was supposed to be a sunny, clear Spring day – but once again Indiana weather fooled us. The day started out more like a Winter Offhand day – moderately cold and damp. To add insult to injury, the heater in the clubhouse didn’t light off because a bug had come out of hibernation and build a nest in the gas valve. (It took Marty Didion and Jim Sweeney most of the morning to evict the little booger). Nevertheless, we had 14 shooters show up for the match – almost two full relays.
Scores were pretty good for a first match of the season, with occasional lapses showing that skills do get rusty over the winter. We had two Junior girls shoot 50-round National Match courses; Aria Hobbs was top shooter with a 459-7X score.
The “Adults” went to the high end of the line to shoot their match.
In the group that fired the 80-round Regional Match, Marshall Rohrbach didn’t show much winter rust – firing a 782-17X for first place honors. Jim Jackson followed with 779-25X, a really great X-count. Ashley Stevens, a visitor who made the trip over from Toledo, cleaned the Sitting Rapid stage on the way to her 770-18X third place finish. Kudos to Junior Tayt Shaffer for his best match to date with a 744-6X
And, in the Iron Man category – Mark Walters shot the 1000 point match with his M1 Garand in .30-06 tallying an 808-6X total.
It was interesting that the four Juniors went down to the low end of the line and set up for their own match. The four of them had a great morning – as a group they shot an aggregate score in the Expert category. And, if you have never listened to a group of Juniors trash-talk each other – you have missed a real show! They fit into the High Power community very well.
The Juniors went down to the low end of the line and shot their own match.
And, those who sit and shiver also contribute to the match.
We finished up at about 12:15; and as we walked off the line – the sun came out and the bright, warm day we had expected started. Oh well, it was a nice afternoon to do yard work at home.
Our next activity is a High Power Clinic on Saturday April 18th. This Clinic is free to Juniors and with some late cancellations, we still have seats available. The Clinic starts at 8:00 AM, so if you have an opening that morning, come on out.
The High Power schedule gets busy in May. High Power practice starts on Thursday, May 7th. The range closes at 3:00 PM for mowing and setup – with practice starting about 4:30 PM.
On Saturday May 9th we have our next 50/80/100 Across-the-Course Match. Registration and setup starts at about 7:45 AM with the first shot going downrange at 9:00 AM sharp.
On Wednesday, May 13th we have our first Juniors Only practice at 4:30.