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AMERICUS – The Sumter County High School Rifle Team competed against Worth County (WC) on Tuesday, February 1. While it was a very competitive match, the Panthers were edged out by WC by the score of 1077-32 to 1027-23 at the indoor rifle range at Sumter County High School.

In High School Riflery, there are three positions that each contestant competes in: the Standing Position, the Kneeling Position and the Prone Position. Each individual shooter can score a maximum of 300 points. According to SCHS Head Coach Seth Howell, the scores of the top four shooters for each team will add up to a team score so they can get a total of 1,200 points. “When the kids are shooting above 1,000, they’re usually shooting pretty good,” Howell said.

According to the rules stated in the 2020-2022 National Standard Three-Position Air Rifle Rules Handbook, each shooter gets five to eight minutes, depending on the type of position, to site his or her rifle before the start of Record Firing.

In the Prone Position, the shooters get eight minutes to site their rifles and 10 minutes to shoot as many targets as possible. In the Standing Position, the shooters get five minutes to site their rifles and they have 15 minutes to shoot as many targets as possible. In the Knelling Position, the shooters get five minutes to site their rifles and 10 minutes to shoot their qualification score.

The members of the Sumter County High School Rifle Team are Caleb Josey-Durham, Mason Butts, Ian Richards and Ne’Skyria Geddis. They competed against the Worth County team of Alexis Brooks, Conner Day, Jessica Foster, Taryn Sinks, Casen Moore and Dakota Cloud. In the Prone Position competition, the Rams edged out the Panthers 374-15 to 371-15. In the Standing Position, Worth County edged out Sumter County 346-6 to 305-2. In the Kneeling Position, the Rams out shot the Panthers 370-13 to 351-6 and the total score of the match was 1077-32 to 1027-23 in favor of WC.

The target boards that the shooters are shooting at consist of 12 black circles. In the very center of each circle, there is a tiny dot that the shooters are aiming at, similar to a yellow bulls eye in Archery. If the shooter hits that dot, they get a score of 10, just like in Archery.

The Panthers were able to rebound from the loss to WC the following day, when they traveled down to Blakely, GA and defeated Early County by the total score of 991-17 to 698-4. Ian Richards was the top shooter for the night with a 265 and 9 inner-tens score (265-9).

The Panthers’ next match will be at home on Thursday, February 10 against Dougherty at 5 p.m.