Rifle

Liam wanted to do an after school activity this year, he narrowed it down to Rifle Team, Fencing club, and Robotics (an extension of the Lego Robotics program he has been in for years.) In the end, Rifle Team won out for this year. After starting the season and seeing how much time commitment is involved...I am glad he just chose one! Rifle practices 4-5 nights per week and sometimes shoots on Saturday. Also required is help with their fund-raising efforts. As anyone who shoots regularly can tell you, all the supplies do not come cheap. Liam has now had two matches and is doing very well. They shoot three positions (prone, kneeling, and standing) two target cards each over the course of about 2 hours in both air rifle and small bore (.22). Their targets are scored points out of 100 for a total of points out of 600.

In his first match he shot a 488 for air rifle and 480 for small bore. Lathrop as a team won against North Pole in both varsity and junior varsity. For the second match against Huchinson (Lathrop's biggest rival last year) Liam shot a 502 for air rifle (he beat all of the JV and one of the varsity shooters!) and 430 in the small bore. Lathrop won by a very short margin in both the JV and V for small bore and air rifle.

Liam is having a lot of fun and learning a lot about how to compete in this sport. Unfortunately he is having some loooong days trying to keep up with practices that run till 7ish and shoots that can last till after 9 and still getting his homework done for the 3 honours classes he is taking. The season will last into December and for now I think he is counting it as worth every second!