On July 16th our oldest four children headed up to the World Shooting Complex in Sparta, Illinois to participate in the 2014 SPP (Scholastic Pistol Program) National Championship. Our team, Alabama Privateers, competed in the Senior Rimfire Division. It was a very exciting time for the team and our family!
Team shirts that arrived a couple of weeks before nationals!
The kids discovered that Illinois' three most common crops are corn, soybeans, and wheat.
A small town on the way to Sparta.
Annie and Natalie on the road to the World Shooting Complex.
Playing UNO in the car to pass the time on the drive.
Arriving at the World Shooting Complex!
Our team, Alabama Privateers!
{From left to right- Houston, Annie, Natalie, and Emmy}
One of our sets of grandparents drove from Missouri to Illinois to be at the competitions and cheer on their competing grandchildren! They even made their own tee shirts with our teams name on them!
Bryan (dad & coach) with the team!
More than 2500 young shooters competed in this years nationals! In addition to the 2500 shooters were thousands of coaches, family members, and supporters. In fact over 15,000 people came through the World Recreational Complex during the week of nationals in Sparta. This year was the largest youth shooting event ever held for the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) National Championships.
Pistol shooting is not the only competition held at nationals. In fact, pistol shooting was just added to nationals two years ago. Trap, skeet, and clay are among the other competitions. Trap had almost 1900 participants. A total of 736 shooters shot skeet, and their were 677 sporting clays shooters. Of the 2180 total shooters, 1818 were male and 361 female. That is one of the things that makes our predominately female team unique. Competitions took place all week long from Monday- Friday with 175 teams competing from 26 states!
Our team arrived on Thursday morning in Sparta and was able to have a practice time as well as watch some of the other teams practice. Competitions took place among junior division shooters and senior division shooters. Our team shot in the senior division.
One of the shooting stations.
Another one of the shooting stations.
Our team with Bella who is on one of the south Texas teams.
Each of the shooting stations were really nice!
The "Go Fast" targets which are the largest targets in the competition.
Natalie & Grandpa Larry during practice on Thursday.
Meme & Natalie during practice on Thursday.
Meme & the team!
Coach dad "painting" the targets during practice.
Annie during practice.
Annie was paid a high compliment from one of the range officers when he came up to her after watching her shoot during practice and asked if her last name was Oakley. *grin*
Natalie during practice time.
Emmy during practice on Thursday.
On Thursday evening SPP offered a pizza social for all of the teams. It was a great way to meet the other teams and get to talk to them.
Friday was competition day!
One of the other teams, Hoosier Daddy's. They have been competing for a while now and they were so wonderful to give our team some tips and cheer us on.
Houston during competition.
Out of 16 teams that competed in the Senior Rimfire division our team placed in the top 10! Considering that our kids have only been shooting together for 4 months and this was their first big competition, I think that's pretty impressive! The kids learned a lot and really enjoyed meeting the other teams and members of SPP. A couple of guys from one of south Texas teams paid our team a big compliment by coming up and telling us that we are an up and rising team in the world of pistol shooting. Unlike so many other sports the other teams are so encouraging and supportive of competing teams. It is one of the things we love about this sport! We are so thankful for the overall experience.
Saturday was the awards ceremony.
The champions in the Senior Rimfire division (our division).
This is the 1st place team for the Senior Centerfire Division.
After the awards ceremony on Saturday Bryan and the kids went out to lunch with Meme & Larry for some visiting.
Bryan and Houston in a local Sparta restaurant.
This picture was taken at a Walmart located near the World Shooting Complex. Never have we seen this much ammo in a Walmart before. :)
And even more ammo!
Sparta, Illinois is a very small town in what we would call the boondocks of Illinois. It is only about an hour drive over the state line and into St. Louis, Missouri though so on Sunday before heading back home the team headed over for a quick drive into St. Louis and some brief sight-seeing.
Here are a few pictures that the kids took of St. Louis.
The gateway arch!
The girls with their Meme in St. Louis.
Mother and son out to eat in St. Louis.
A hot air balloon seen while making the drive from Illinois back home to Alabama.
Our team is already looking forward to competing in the 2015 national championships in Sparta! Until then their will be various regional competitions that we will be competing in around the southeast and possibly the mid-west.
Some really exciting news is that upon returning from nationals our team has gained a sponsor!! This is a huge answer to prayer for us. The targets needed to practice the courses in competitions cost thousands of dollars and that along with ammo and the cost of traveling to competitions makes this sport a bit expensive. Their is a new local gun range being built about 20 minutes from us, Mountainside Sports, and the owner of the range has stepped forward to sponsor our team. The range will be completed in October and the owner is buying the targets our team needs and is also giving us ammo at his cost as well as a key to the range so that we can practice at any time. Again, we are sooo very thankful for this blessing!
One more exciting piece of news is that this past week our team was featured in the weekly publication of the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation. They featured a video that we put together about our experience at nationals this year.You can view it, HERE.
To those of you family members and friends that contributed to the cost of us getting to the national championships this year, thank you!! To our family that made the trip to Sparta to cheer us on in person, thank you!! To those of you that cheered us on from afar, thank you!! And lastly, to those of you that simply love and support and pray for us, thank you!! We are so grateful for each of you!
If you want to follow our team throughout this upcoming year you can do so on Facebook, HERE, where we post up to date news about team happenings. Their are also videos of the kids shooting at nationals on our Facebook page. You can also visit our website, HERE, to learn more about us and view videos of us. Emmy manages the teams Instagram page which you can find, HERE.
"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men"......Colossians 3:23
