Shooting
2011 NEW ZEALAND CLAY TARGET NATIONALS
Four of our school shooters competed in the New Zealand Nationals held early this year in Hamilton.
Liam Buchanan and Sean Collinson-Smith competed throughout the week in all 8 disciplines while James Pritchard and Gus Verry concentrated on the Single Rise, Single Barrel and Points events.
Competing in this Championship means that you are often in the company Olympians, various internationals, Australian state champions and most of the top adult shooters in this country. It is a wonderful opportunity to test your skills against some of the best and have the chance to interact with them. Many competitors will continually enter these championships for most of their lives and never win a medal but this year, 2 of our team won bronze medals.
Gus Verry competing in the C grade Single Rise event scored 49/50. This secured him 3rd place and the bronze medal in this grade. This is a phenomenal performance for a schoolboy shooter in this type of competition.
Sean Collinson-Smith shooting off 16m in the handicap by distance event scored the possible 50/50. This placed him 6th overall and also earned him in a bronze medal position. Another excellent effort.
Liam Buchanan was rewarded for a consistently high performance over the week in all events by being selected in the North Island Junior team.
Hauraki Plains Inter- school Shoot
The second inter-school shoot this year was held in very trying and difficult conditions yesterday.
The first event of the day was Single Rise and a number of excellent scores were posted by both the A and B team.
Liam Buchanan and Sean Collinson-Smith both shot the possible 20/20 and they were closely followed by Logan Dunsmuir, Kyle Glessing and Henry Wills on 19.
The Teams Point’s event coincided with some of the worst conditions of the day and all teams struggled to post good scores. The wind and driving rain was creating havoc and although we began poorly the A team refocused and applied themselves well in an attempt to minimise these effects.
Logan Dunsmuir shot an incredible 58/60, shooting all but two targets on his first barrel, while Sean Collin-Smith used only 3 second barrels to score 57/60. Although we were a little disappointed with final score of 268/300 we knew we had done the very best we could under the conditions.
As the leader board scores were posted it became evident that the other top schools had faired a lot worse. Kings, Tauranga Boy’s and Hauraki Plains all posted scores in the low 250’s and this really just left Hamilton Boys, the current holders of the shield to complete their round. Their final score of 264, 4 below our score meant that we had won the Provincial Freightlines shield for the first time. Sean Collinson-Smith and Liam Buchanan then continued their good form by shooting 14/15 in the Single Barrel event Sean was tied with 3 other shooters for the High Overall Shooter of the competition with a combined score of 91/95. He then comprehensively won the shoot off to take this prestigious prize.
Other major highlights of the day were Henry Wills winning the first year novice prize with a score of 78/95 and Francoise Eksteen who shot a very creditable 17/20 in the Single Rise for the B team. Both of these boys are in their first year of competition shooting
Winners of the Freightline Shield: A team of Liam Buchanan, James Pritchard, Logan Dunsmuir, Gus Verry , Sean Collinson Smith
Auckland Metropolotan Interschool Shoot - March 2011
As always the opening interschool shoot proved to be a mixed bag for both individuals and teams alike. It was generally a day of low scores and lack of consistency as shooters started their long campaign and began to settle into familiar routines.
The first event was Single Rise. This is the easiest discipline and the results here will often set the tone for the day. A disappointing round from the A team saw only Liam Buchanan score the possible 20/20. Having said this, our final team score of 91/100 was good enough to tie us with Hauraki Plains and Strathallan for the shoot off for first place later in the day.
The Points events also proved difficult and although we had 4 shooters reach scores in the 50’s our final score of 268/300 was 10/15 points below our potential. Once again we managed to lead the table for most of the day but were eventually overhauled by Tauranga Boy’s and Waiuku to take 3rd place overall. Liam Buchanan again led the way with an individual score of 59/60.
The last event of the day was Single Barrel. Logan Dunsmuir and Gus Verry shot well, scoring 10/10 and 9/10 respectively.
In the shoot offs for the team Single Rise Trophy we quickly dropped 4 targets effectively knocking us out of contention for retaining the shield we won last year.
The bright spot of the day was Liam Buchanan continuing his good form by winning the Individual Single Rise.
Both Tom Coster and Henry Wills tried very hard all day in their first competitive shoot and with more experience at this level, we can expect their scores will improve dramatically.
St Paul’s Interschool and NISS Shooting Tournament (July 3 and 4)
The North Island Secondary Schools Tournament is competed over two consecutive days with the Hamilton Boys High School interschool used as an “eye opener” for the more prestigious North Island Secondary School event.
It was difficult to tell whether it was because it was the last day of the term or just a total lack of concentration but day one definitely did not go to plan.
All of the St Paul’s shooters experienced difficulties over the three disciplines. The boys lacked rhythm and focus and as a consequence their scores reflected this.
The best scores on the opening day were Gus Very with a possible 20/20 in the Single Rise and Liam Buchanan and Declan Howlett with the possible 10/10 in the Single Barrel. Logan Dunsmuir produced the best effort in the team’s Points score with a 59/60.
Some very short, sharp words of encouragement from the coach bought day one to an end and left the team to head home with a considerable amount of contemplation before the all important North Island’s.
The next morning the shooters were confronted with heavy fog. This produced a “cat and mouse” game between the coaches who were trying to delay their teams “squading up” until the fog lifted. This was to no avail as the fog persisted and all the teams had to deal with these difficult white out conditions.
St Paul’s started well with Liam Buchanan shooting the possible 20/20 in the Single Rise and both Declan Howlett and Logan Dunsmuir dropping only one target to score 19/20.
The Point’s event began as the fog started to lift. At the same time the boys found their rhythm and although they dropped two targets, the team produced a very respectable 286/300. Liam Buchanan once again scored a possible 60/60 and he was well supported by Declan Howlett and Logan Dunsmuir who both scored 59/60.
Buoyed with confidence, St Paul’s performed very well in the Single Barrel event with Liam, Dion Candy and Logan all shooting the possible 10/10 and Declan Howlett producing a 9/10.
A glance at the leader board indicated St Paul’s had gained the silver medal in the team’s points event, behind Tauranga Boys College but well clear of Waiuku, New Plymouth and Hamilton Boys High School. This is the first time that St Paul’s has ever won a medal in this event at this level.
Liam Buchan was the only shooter out of the 300 present to shoot the 3three events clean, scoring the very impressive 90/90. This gave him the “High Overall” and Top individual shooter of the tournament.
St Paul’s also had a number of boys in various individual shoot off’s for medals. Liam took the individual bronze medal in the Points event and backed this up by taking the silver medal in the individual Single Barrel event.
Both Dion Candy and Logan Dunsmuir made it through to the finals of the Single Barrel event, which put them into the top 18 for this event.
Overall, very pleasing results for the St Paul’s shooter and note what a difference 24 hours, and some gentle words of persuasion can make.
Results
Liam Buchanan: Cup for High Overall and Top shooter at the NISS
Silver medal for Team’s Points Score event
Silver medal for Individual Single Barrel event
Bronze medal for the Individual Points event
Dion Candy : Silver medal for Team’s Points Score event
Declan Howlett: Silver medal for Team’s Points Score event
Logan Dunsmuir: Silver medal for Team’s Points Score event
James Pritchard: Silver medal for Team’s Points Score event
Victoria State Shooting Carnival - November 2009
In November 2009, after outstanding shooting success at home, the St Paul’s Collegiate School Clay Target Team traveled to the small picturesque tourist town of Echuca in Northern Victoria to compete in the Victoria State Championships. After landing in Melbourne the team traveled three hours north of the state capital and settled into a camping ground on the banks of the Murray River. Echuca is a very historic town, well known for it’s paddle steamers, as well as being the location for the movie “All the Rivers Run”.
The first morning the team awoke at 5.47am to the morning chorus of thousands of Rosellas and Ghallas as they prepared to head off to their various feeding grounds. As the sun rose so did the temperature and as the team headed out to the gun club the air conditioner was turned up to maximum.
Day one had only one event, the Double Rise, and the team experienced immediate success. Jack Norwood scored a very impressive 49/50 beating the field of over 300 competitors to take the overall State Title in this event.
Three events were competed for on day two: the Single Rise, Single Barrel and Handicap events. Jock Saxton shot very well in the Handicap event and made it through to 10th place, while Owen Robinson gained 6= place with 49/50 in the Single Barrel event.
The Single Rise is one event that will always take a long time to complete and this once again proved to be the case. As the temperatures continued to rise, peaking at 38C, shooting became increasingly difficult. This problem was exacerbated by the huge number of flies that continually tried to attack or land on any exposed skin, eyes, nostril or open mouth. Jack Norwood and Owen Robinson both shot 50/50 to progress through to the shoot offs with another 80 plus competitors. As the afternoon wore on Owen was eliminated and by 7.00pm Jack and another eight competitors had shot 200 targets clean, so it was decided to start again the next morning.
When shooting recommenced, two shooters were quickly eliminated leaving a very impressive array of Australian and state title holders along with Jack Norwood. As the morning wore on more dropped away, until the Victorian State Champion and Jack were the only two left in the competition. The competition was finally decided after six hours and 471 consecutive targets when Jack was eliminated to take second place. A remarkable feat in what only can only be described as an epic battle between two equally matched contestants.
The final points event once again demonstrated the strength of the St Paul's shooting team with Jack Norwood 149/150, Owen Robinson 148/150, and Liam Buchanan 144/150.
The Trans-Tasman Shooting Cup was also contested during the carnival with three school teams from both Australia and New Zealand making up the field. St Paul's individual scores were Owen Robinson, Jack Norwood and Liam Buchanan with the possible 25/25, Jock Saxton 24/25 and James Pritchard 23/25. This gave the team a total score of 122/125 and a placing of second overall, just two points behind the winning team, Waiuku, also from New Zealand.
Best individual results:
Jack Norwood: Winner of the Victorian State Title in Double Rise
Second in the Single Rise
Winner of the Junior High Overall (by 9 points)
Owen Robinson: 6th= in the Single Barrel
Top 50 in the Single Rise
Jock Saxton: Tenth in the Handicap event