The JROTC Three Position Service Championship series is one of the premier academic air rifle matches of the year for Junior ROTC cadets across the country. Each year, the annual Precision Air Rifle and Sportsman Competition, facilitated by the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP), regularly draws hundreds of young high school athletes to the shooting range.
But remarkably, in 2023, the event received the second-highest turnout in its 17-year history, with 875 total athletes, second only to the 2016 match, which saw 890.
“It was great to see the participation in the 2023 JROTC Service Championships,” said CMP’s Brad Donoho, JROTC Director of Matches.
“If it wasn’t for some last-minute weather-related cancellations, this year would have been the best turnout ever,” he continued. “Seeing participation rebound as it has after COVID disrupted everything says a lot about the health of JROTC marksmanship.”
The JROTC Air Rifle Service Championship is a 3×20 air rifle competition, where competitors fire a record 20 shots from three positions: prone, standing, and kneeling. The 2023 Regional Service Championships were held in three locations (Utah, Alabama, and Ohio) over the weekends of February 2-4 and February 9-11. Individual and team prizes were awarded. The overall leading scorers will move on to the National Championship, which will be held at the Gary Anderson CMP Center of Competition in Camp Perry, Ohio, March 23-25.
Jose Gonzalez, 17, of North Brunswick High School in North Carolina, with a score of 1193-39X, placed first among Army JROTC individual athletes at the JROTC Service Championships. González narrowly claimed the highest score, clearing the title by x-count only. Liv Lusky, 17, of Lumpkin County High School in Georgia, at 1282-73X, led in accuracy by just one point over the second-place finisher.
Coinciding with the individual test, the duel was played by teams of four people for both sporter and precision in each branch of service. The best Army sports team was Missouri’s Webb City High School, with a 40-point lead over the second-place team, while the accuracy contest was led by Ansbach High School, AE.
In the Navy competition, Danjela DeJesus, 17, of Camden County High School in Georgia shot an impressive score of 1290-91X to lead the accuracy competition. Brianna Benedetto, 16, of Zion Benton High School in Illinois, scored 1183-32X for the overall score in the sports meet.
DeJesus’ Camden County was the leading precision team in the Navy event, as Mississippi’s Pascagoula High School took first place as an athlete.
Samantha Zermeno, 18, of Nation Ford High School in South Carolina, shot a score of 1218-49X to edge out Marine Corps sports competition, while Caroline Martin, 18, of Granbury High School (Texas ), led the Marine Corps precision event by a margin. she of 15 points, with a total score of 1295-104X.
Nation Ford and Granbury were also the top sports and precision teams in the Marine Corps, respectively.
The Air Force competition saw Charles Bratton II, 18, of Clover High School in South Carolina, racking up a score of 1196-40X to take a commanding 24-point lead in the sports matchup, with Chloe Shannon, 17, of Union High School in Oklahoma scoring the highest by nearly 30 points in the accuracy event after earning an overall score of 1271-80X. Bratton’s Clover High School went on to claim the overall spot in the team sports meet by nearly 50 points. Overseas Alconbury High School led the precision team event by a minor margin of just four points.
Find a complete list of JROTC Service Championship results, including the leading scorers from each location, on the CMP competition tracking page at https://ct.thecmp.org/2023JROTCServiceResults. View a list of JROTC National Championship selections at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTlWdASvoOBxiCU7CfrwnnkMS5fyKW1WD3RPAOpyCcqHXYfKjtHB-SNXnFTDAXI9SsniQQd8ukqeSLg/pubhtml#.
More information about the JROTC Air Rifle Championships can be found on the CMP website at https://thecmp.org/youth/jrotc/. Photos of all locations are available for free viewing and download at https://cmp1.zenfolio.com/f967656369.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program is a federally chartered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. It is dedicated to firearms safety and marksmanship training and the promotion of marksmanship proficiency for United States citizens. To learn more about the CMP and its programs, log on to www.TheCMP.org.