Hillsdale prepares for national competition in Alabama

By Carly Moran Assistant Editor

The Hillsdale action shooting team will be fighting for first place next weekend at the Scholastic Action Shooting Program College Action National Championships.

The SASP, a subsidiary of the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation, is hosting nationals again at the CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park in Talladega, Alabama, Mar. 10-12.

“Once a year all the colleges come down and compete in Alabama,” senior Zac Ailes said. “That’s where the team really earns our keep at the college. We get to say, ‘We beat the United States Military Academy at West Point and Texas A&M.’”

The competition consists of four different stages, with different configurations of five steel plates downrange. Variations include setups

Baseball

like “Focus” which involves shooting from right to left at a decreasing distance from 48 to 24 feet from the firing line.

“It takes a lot of precision,” freshman Joseph Grohs said. “Especially these particular stages, they’re very short. If you miss once, your time is no longer competitive. You can make it up a little bit, you can get a little lucky, but having good, delivered shots on each target is what’s going to win you a match.”

The John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center’s partnership with Springfield Armory provided the team with 9mm 1911 pistols. The past few weeks have been focused on sighting in any final errors by running imaginary matches, and determining which athletes will be on the top competing team.

“They make you pick your A, B, and C team before you go down there,”