Wow, what an exciting night, culminating in a shoot-off for A Grade champion. Only one point and no inners separated Ross Little and David Grain going into the final card of the club competition. Ross shot 97.4 last week, so all David needed was 96.5 to be A Grade champion; but alas an inner tested out and 96.4 was his score. A tie after 25 cards! So a shoulder to shoulder shoot-off took place, and Ross scored 97.2 while David had a double test out to finish with 96.3. Congratulations to Ross on a great competition, and commiserations to David. Both shot an average 98.16 throughout the club competition.
And in the other extremely close result, Michael Grain and Pratik Tailor also had a mere point separating them for the Master Grade champion, but Pratik did what Pratik does best and lifted his game for his final card, scoring 100.8 which meant Michael needed a 99 to finish, but unfortunately his shots did not find the middle and he finished with a 96.4. Congratulations to Pratik on another year as Brooklyn's Master Grade champion, but also to Michael on not allowing Pratik an easy win. Their averages throughout the club competition were 98.52 and 98.40 respectively.
Our other graded champions are Maor Ben-Shahar, Stephen Thessman and Neakiry Kivi. Congratulations to all of you, and good luck for your champion of champions matches on Wednesday. It's great to see all our champions are our younger members, with Pratik being the oldest at 22 - this bodes extremely well for the future of the club.
There were many fantastic scores achieved on our final shooting day. In the college training squad both Alex Hill and Nicoli Yamog shot new PBs - Alex increased his PB by a huge 5 points to 98.3, while Nicoli increased by 4 points to 93.2. Well done to both of you, and thanks to Craig Fair for his coaching. Top shot in D Grade this week was Neakiry Kivi with 93.0, while a battle took place in C Grade with a number of brilliant scores shot - Stephen Thessman 99.5 (an equal PB), Callum Osborne 98.5 x 2 (one of these cards had both points tested out), Jialin Sae-Jiw 97.4. Maor Ben-Shahar shot highest in B Grade with 98.4. Only David and Michael shot 10-shot scores in the higher grades, as noted in the first two paragraphs above. Michael achieved the highest score in the 20 shot competition with 198.11 which included 100.7 as well as 197.12, with Dianne Grain inners behind with 197.7.
Congratulations to Callum Osborne and Stephen Thessman on receiving Wellington College honours badges. These badges are awarded to senior students who have made an outstanding contribution / service over a number of years, and are a good role model in the sport. Callum and Stephen have made themselves available throughout the season for many Wellington representative teams and college shooting teams, with Callum being selected for the North Island junior team, and both being in the North Island secondary schools team. Stephen is an excellent organiser, always willing to prepare equipment for matches and help with running the club each week. Congratulations to you both on your well-deserved honours badges.
The Eley Challenge results have been published on the TSNZ website. In the girls grade, Wellington Girls College finished 3rd out of 14 teams - well done to this team (Ruby de Silva, Erin Little and August Gould) on their first time in this competition. Marsden (Jialin Sae-Jiw, Neakiry Kivi and Sarah May) finished two points behind in 4th place. In the boys grade, Wellington College #1 (Sergey Kladnitski, Callum Osborne and Stephen Thessman) finished 6th out of 28 teams. From the 108 boys competing in the Eley Challenge competition this year, Sergey Kladnitski finished 4th; and Ruby de Silva (Wellington Central) came 8th out of the 64 girls competing.
Thanks to the members who have sent through their grading returns. If you have not yet done so, please ensure your grading returns are emailed to me this week so that the club's return can be compiled and sent to TSNZ.
Brooklyn are on cleaning duty this month - this will be undertaken at 4.30pm on Sunday 19 October. Please bring vacuum cleaners, mops, buckets, etc - as usual, the more helpers, the quicker the task is completed.
If you haven't yet put your name down for tickets for the WSRA prizegiving dinner this Saturday, please let me know urgently. The doors open at 6pm with dinner served at 6.30pm. Tickets are $30 each.
And the club's prizegiving BBQ is being held at Craig Fair's house on Sunday from 4.30pm onwards. It would be really good to have as many club members attend as possible as we'll take our usual club photo, as well as photos for various club teams. If you have won a trophy during the season, please bring that along for our 'winners' photo. And of course, could last year's club trophy winners ensure their trophies are engraved, polished and brought along on Sunday.
Upcoming events:
- Wednesday 8 October: Champion of Champions match. D/C Grade, 1x10, 8pm: Neakiry Kivi, Stephen Thessman. B/A/Master Grades, 1x20, 8.20pm: Maor Ben-Shahar, Ross Little, Pratik Tailor.
- Saturday 11 October: WSRA prizegiving dinner, 6.30pm, tickets $30 each. Family and friends welcome to attend.
- Sunday 12 October: BSRC prizegiving barbecue, 4.30pm, Craig Fair's house. Family and friends welcome to attend. Please bring meat for the barbecue and BYO drinks.
- Sunday 19 October: Cleaning duty at Royal Tiger Range, 4.30pm. Please bring vacuum cleaners, mops, buckets, etc.