Above: The 2016 Randle Team at the National Smallbore Championships, Bristol, IN.
A highlight of the annual National Smallbore Rifle Prone Championship is the opportunity to earn a position on one of the four international postal teams.
The apex is to be one of the top 22 scorers in the metallic sight championship, and be named to the U.S. team in the Lord Dewar International Postal sponsored by the National Smallbore Rifle Association of Great Britain. The oldest of the events—it dates from 1909, with a team of 20 shooting the Dewar Course on British targets with British-legal equipment.
The 2017 team was captained by Dave Chesser with Coach Hap Rocketto assisting him. Eric Uptagrafft led the scoring with a 396-25X which earned him the Ned Crossman Plaque as high gun in the US Team. He was followed by Mark Delcotto, Hank Gray, Morgan Dietrich, Matt Chezem, Kerry Spurgin, Kevin Nevius, Michael Seery, Steve Angeli, Howard Pitts, Billy Azzinaro, Katie Bridges, Daniel Martz, Shawn Wells, J. Michael O’Connor, Jimmie Fordham, James Miller, Mark Gould, Matthew Griffin, Daniel Altman and reserves Peter Church and Paul Gideon.
Randle veteran Edie Fleeman captained the all ladies team assisted by Coach Ginger McLemore. The Eleanor Dunn Trophy, emblematic of the high score on the Randle Team went to Nancy Tompkins who shot a 400-26X. Katie Bridges, Michele Makucevich, Morghan Warner, Lisette Grunwell-Lacey, Elizabeth Harty, Megan Hilbish, Elizabeth Ewert, Ruby Gomes, and Anusha Pakkam rounded out the firing members while Chris Rakyta and Laura Milukas acted as reserves.
The Drew Cup Team is composed of juniors and shoots an English Match, 60 shots prone on the international target. The Drew team shoots three events, a three women team, an all-male trio, and a ten-person team. Joe Graf, president of the Rhode Island Revolver and Rifle Association served as Team Adjutant and was assisted by Team Captain Tobin Sanctuary. Sanctuary, John Hirsch, and Bill Azzinaro made up the junior men team while Ruby Gomes, Morghan Warner and Dana Buesseler formed the women’s team. Filling out the rest of the team were Jared Desrosiers, Clayton Hanson, Alex Gestl, and Harrison Callahan, as well as reserves Richard Clark and Jack Anderson.
The Wakefield Trophy Match was shot in Arizona in March at the National Smallbore Rifle Metric Prone Championships with many of the usual players presaging their performance at Bristol. Under the watchful eye of Captain Ginger McLemore and Coach Michael Walker shooters Seery, Uptagrafft, Church, Nevius, Tompkins, DelCotto were joined by Justin Tracy, Reya Kempley, Robert Gustin, Allen Thomas, and reserves Larry Sawyer and Andrew Krause.
The Certificates of Firing have been submitted to the sponsoring National Governing Bodies and will be compiled with the results published in early 2017.
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