James Kenna’s performance at the two-day South Island and national secondary schools shooting tournament added a “silver lining” to St Paul’s Collegiate School’s shooting season says Coach Ian Campbell.
The 17-year-old won a silver medal in the single barrel event at the two-day tournament held in Christchurch during the Term 3 holidays.
James joined 30 other shooters to compete for a podium placing.
Shooters were quickly eliminated but James maintained his focus and composure through three fields before dropping his 15th target.
With only one shooter ahead of him, James was in line for a silver or bronze medal.
Then came the waiting game. James sat on the side-line waiting to see how the rest of the competition played out.
“He had to wait for other competitors to finish to see if they would pass his score,” said St Paul’s Shooting Coach Ian Campbell.
“It became obviously early on that most were having difficulty and that James’ score would definitely place him in a medal position.”
On the final count back, James was awarded silver.
“This was a fantastic effort considering this discipline is the most difficult of the three. After what had been a difficult season, this really put a silver lining on it for us all.”
Five other St Paul’s students competed at the event.
Day one of the tournament included a single rise event in which Jarrod Dixon shot the possible 20/20 and progressed through to the medal round in the afternoon where he faced 80 competitors.
“He had an uphill battle against a lot more experienced and older shooters and although he dropped out early he can be very pleased with his effort,” said Campbell.
Jonathan Porritt, Dylan Woodhouse and Hugh Jackson also competed in the single rise event, all scoring a respectable 18/20.
In second event of day one, the points, Jonathan and Dylan continued their good form both scoring 58/60 while in the third event, single barrel, silver medallist James Kenna scored 9/10.
On day two, Jonathan Porritt had the best score in the single rise event – 19/20. While Jonathan and Dylan each scored 9/10 in the single barrel.
All in all, a successful two days for St Paul’s shooters.
