Lee County riflery team heading back to GHSA state championships

ALBANY — It’s one of the oldest sports in the Olympics. However, there are many that still don’t understand how the competition works.

But the Lee County riflery team does and they will be heading to the Georgia High School Association state championships on April 4 at Fort Benning. The Trojans will be one of the 14 teams competing.

“The sport we shoot is an Olympic sport,” Lee County riflery coach Al Schuette said. “It’s actually a combination of two. In the Olympics, they have Standing Air Rifle and they have Three Position Small Bore, which is .22 caliber. We are sort of a combination. We do all three positions, but we shoot the air rifles.”

Schuette said the first gold medal awarded in the summer Olympics every four years is female Air Rifle Standing Position.

“That’s what kicks off the Olympics,” Schuette said. “It’s the third most popular sport in the summer Olympics by number of countries that participate.”

There are three types of rifle shooting that the teams will be participating in — the prone position, the standing position and the kneeling position. The targets are boards with 12 black dots.

“They shoot at black dots … that’s what they see through their sights,” Schuette said. “The actual thing they are aiming for is a little half centimeter white dot in the middle of a black dot. That’s the top score. That’s what we call getting a 10.”

Schuette said each of the black dots on the board is what the shooter is aiming for.

“They shoot at 10 black dots in the laying down or prone position, 10 shots in the standing position and then 10 shots in the kneeling position,” he said. “They add up those 30 shots. It they hit the white dot in the middle of one of the black dots, that’s a 10, or bulls-eye. If they can hit all white dots within each of the 10 black dots during their entire shooting match, that’s a perfect score of 300.”

While there are 12 black dots on the board, only 10 of those dots are scoring targets.

“There is a getting set up period called a sighter period,” Schuette said. “It’s where they get set up. That’s what those two targets (black dots) are for. Those dots are in the ‘race track’ or sighter ring. Those are non-scoring targets.”

Schuette said that the shooters have a certain amount of time to shoot all 10 dots, and they have one shot per each target (each of the 10 black dots).

“In the prone position and the kneeling position, they have 10 minutes to take those 10 shots,” Schuette said. “In the standing position, they have 15 minutes to take those 10 shots.”

The Lee County Riflery team consists of six members. Senior Courtney Weekley is the team captain. Other members include junior Katelyn Howell, freshman Garrett Botkin, junior Michael Roberts, junior Trotter Brown and sophomore Madisyn Haire.

The Trojans made it to the state championships last season.

“We started shooting this season as soon as we ended the season last year,” Schuette said. “We ended up fifth in the state last year, and then the same team qualified and went to the Junior Olympics. We lost two seniors off that team. We picked up a junior who had never shot before, as well as a sophomore and a freshman, and they started shooting as well this year as last year’s team ended.

“Right off the bat, we knew we had something. For us, it’s breaking all the records at this high school.”

Weekley, the team’s only senior, was captivated by the sport three years ago at a summer camp.

“I started shooting when I was was in ninth-grade,” she said. “I heard about rifle week, which was during the summer. I went to it and I automatically loved it ever since I picked up the first rifle.”

In all sports, team chemistry and camaraderie are vital for success. Riflery is no exception.

“We’re just a big family … we help each other out with academics,” Weekley said. “Whatever they need, we basically try and help out each other. If they are having a bad day, we try and cheer them up.”

Weekley was not far off from perfection this year as her best score was a 292.

“Last year, I achieved a 295 out of 300,” she said.

Weekley said the team started shooting in Navy competitions first. Once they started GHSA events, the team took off.

“We set goals,” she said. “When we kept on winning and winning and winning and achieving those goals and raising the bar, I knew that we were going to do great this year.”

Howell, a junior, became interested in the sport because of a friend on the team.

“I’ve been on the team since ninth-grade,” Howell said. “I knew somebody on the team who told me about it, and wanted me on the team, so I started it and got better.”

The highest Howell shot in her three years was a 293, a mark good enough to earn her all-state honors.

Freshman Garrett Botkin joined the team having never shot before. He has excelled. However, there were growing pains, such as the first day of practice.

“Speaking for myself, when you start out and see all the other top shooters and you’re looking at them, it was ugly,” Botkin said. “You see how well your teammates are shooting and you look at your own score and it’s really down there. It’s kinda not a good feeling.”

That experience motivated Botkin to improve and progress.

“It’s also one that I’m glad I started out with because as you progress and move on, you sit there and look at it as if ‘I was there at one time, and now I’m all the way up here,’ ” Botkin said.

His highest score is a 272 during a practice round, while his highest score in a match is 257. Botkin believes he and his teammates have what it takes to bring home a state title.

“We kept winning and we were doing so much better than the other teams,” Botkin said. “I think that’s when I thought, ‘You know, we could go to state. We could win state. We could go to nationals.’ “

Both Weekley and Howell have made all-state for the Trojans.

“We’re growing some good shooters,” Schuette said. “We just gotta keep it going that way.”

Lee County has never won a state championship. The Trojans’ best finish in school history was last year.

“We had been in the state finals before, but we had never done as well as we did last year,” Schuette said.

The team hopes that will change this year.