Sitting, then kneeling, then standing, junior Grant Pattison fires 20 shots which are judged on a electronically scored range. As team commander, Pattison will lead his team to national competition in Arizona Feb. 8-10.

“Well my main goal for this year is to get to a team to go to nationals in the first place because it’s a pretty big accomplishment for a team to even go,” Pattison said.

Last year only Ryan Randle went to Nationals but this year, Taylor Johnson, Kirsten Zeug, Anna Johnson, Phillip Colton and Pattison are going after upping the ante on their training.

“We practice every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 a.m. and right after school starting at 4:15,” he said. ““We do different shooting exercises depending on what I see people struggling with and go compete at as many different schools as possible at other NJROTC shoots to get used to competing with people you don’t know being right there.”

At the competition they will have the chance to medal both individually and as a team.

“I think we will get there and hopefully beat some teams that didn’t suspect that we would be there because we have made some huge improvements since the previous years,” he said. “

“My favorite part of the team is first off the art of shooting itself and the competition that goes along with that. Secondly would be the friendships that come from being on a team with a bunch of other shooters.”