Best result for St Paul’s at North Island and NZ National SS Clay Target Shooting Competition 2011
This three day competition was held this year in the Waikato between the 8th-10th October. Three hundred and thirty-nine competitors representing over 40 schools from both the South and North Island attended this meeting with 7 shooters representing St Paul’s.
Day one
The first day of competition began with the NISS. Three elimination events are held in the morning and only those individual shooters who score the possible number of points in each event progress on to the shoot offs in the afternoon. These shoot offs will then determine the various place getters and medal winners. There is only one team event in the programme and this has become one of the most sort after titles in this competition. The first event was the Single Rise and our A team got off to a solid start with both Liam Buchanan and James Pritchard shooting the possible 20/20 and progressing on to the afternoon event. Gus Very shot a creditable 19/20.
The second event of the morning was the more difficult “Points “contest. Sean Collinson-Smith and Anthony Simpson had a fantastic round shooting the possible 60/60 while James Pritchard dropped only 4 points to shoot a 56/60. Only 4 shooters in the entire competition shot the possible 60 points, so we already knew we would win at least one medal from the afternoon competition.
Our team score over the 5 shooters in our A team was 282/300. This was the first time this year that we had broken the 280 barrier and we were very pleased with this effort. As the scores slowly came in and were posted we found out that we were tied with Tauranga Boy’s College for second and we would have to shoot off for the silver and bronze later in the day.
The last event of the morning was the Single Barrel and Liam Buchanan and Fransoise Eksteen shot the possible 10/10 and Sean Collinson-Smith dropping a target to score 9/10.
The afternoon programme began with the shoot off for the individual Points title and this was quickly resolved. The other two contestants missed their targets in the early stages leaving Sean and Anthony to shoot it out for the High Overall and First place positions. This was eventually won by Sean who took the title for this event. We were in the unique position of having a St Paul’s shooter take both first and second place in this discipline.
The team Points shoot off was next. In a nail biting finish Tauranga Boy’s prevailed, beating us by 1 point to take the silver medal, leaving us with third place and the bronze. Liam Buchanan continued with the good form he had shown throughout the day gaining 1st place in the individual Single Barrel and then went on to be placed 6th in the Single Rise event.
Day two
Day two was the NZ Nationals and the programme followed the same format as the previous day.
The Single Rise event did not go well and a bad dose of the nerves caused us to loose a lot of the focus, rhythm and precision that we had been exhibited the day before. Sean Collinson-Smith was once again the rock of reliability scoring the possible 20/20 while Liam Buchanan and Gus Very scored 19/20. This resulted in quick trip back to the practice trap to help sort out some of the problems and settle the nerves down before the next event was to begin.
The Points event went a lot more smoothly as we began to find some of our old form. Although no one was able to score a possible, all shooters made a solid contribution. Liam and Sean both scored 59/60 while Kyle Glessing and James Pritchard both scored 54 and Anthony Simpson 52. Our team score of 278/300 was a little lower than what we had hoped for but it was still competitive. As the other scores began to come in it was obvious that many of the other top schools had run into real difficulties and their totals were well below ours. When the final scores were posted we were once again tied for 2nd and 3rd place and would be forced into a shoot off later in the day.
Our afternoon programme was very light with only Sean making it through to an individual final. Unfortunately he was unable to make it into the medal rounds.
Then it was on to the teams Points events shoot off. We watched the opposition drop 7 points and this gave us every opportunity to win this match. Unfortunately this was not to be and we once again had to settle for bronze.
Although we were a little disappointed with this particular result, the consistency we had shown over the 2 days meant we had won the very prestigious Winchester Challenge Trophy as HOA two day teams point’s champions.
Overall we were elated with these results. After having a very disruptive end to the third team which impacted severely on our build up, we could not have hoped for a better outcome.
A total of 5 medals and the team trophy was one of our best results ever.
