You could say for a fact this five-person team of JROTC students at Rio Rancho High School is a straight-shooting bunch.
That’s because RRHS’s rifle-toting marksmanship team, coached by retired Marine Capt. Freddy Morales, won the Marine Division of the JROTC West Regional competition last month in Salt Lake City.
Yeah, it’s a coed team, but so what? RRHS’s female members finished among the top five: Yolanda Vigil was the first-place individual, Gabriella Mayes finished second and team captain Elizabeth McGee finished fifth.
There are two different shooting categories in air rifle marksmanship. One is for cadets who shoot a more basic sporter rifle, which cannot exceed $525 in value. In the second category, a precision air rifle is used. Those guns range in price from $3,000 to $3,600.
Both types of air rifles use compressed air for propulsion, firing a .177-caliber flat lead pellet a distance of 10 meters at an electric scoring target. Morales said his team uses Crossman rifles and “all have to pass a safety exam.”
Each shooter gets 20 shots from three different positions: prone, kneeling and standing.
The top possible score is 600; RRHS scored a school-record 560 on the first day, 545 on day two.
“We shoot locally – that’s called a postal match, because they send us by mail the targets. So we shoot that on our home range, and from those targets, they have what they call a ‘cutting’ score,” he explained. “So out of 300 points, if they shoot a 265 or higher, they qualify. We ended up having a couple of shooters shoot 270, so we qualified as a team to go to regionals.
“The cool thing, though, it’s divided by service, meaning we were competing against all the Marine teams,” Morales said.
Although a Navy team recorded a higher score, RRHS had the top score for a Marines team.
Next? The nationals, being held March 18-20 in Aniston, Ala.
“The USMC pays for it,” added Morales, who was born in Nicaragua, raised in Miami, and served 20 years, six months, in the Marine Corps. That stint included 26 months in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I joined the Marine Corps right after high school; retired Dec. 31, 2014,” he said. “Once we reached retirement – I’m married with two toddlers, a 5- and a 7-year-old – we were looking for options for jobs.
“I was in JROTC myself and that was one of my options,” he said. “Through the Marine Corps, I saw the opening here. I came here for the interview and after the process, I got hired here.”
His first day on the job, replacing Maj. Gen. Walter Finney, was Nov. 1, 2014. In the 2015 marksmanship western regionals, RRHS second with an all-senior team.
Morales said there are 126 JROTC students at RRHS. They have a couple of classrooms – one for coursework and one for their range in the Engineering & Technology building.
He’s no slouch with a weapon: He was a two-time All-American while on the pistol team at The Citadel.
He knows the three keys to success: Practice, practice, practice.
“We shoot about 100 rounds daily, at a minimum,” he said. “Some come back and shoot in the afternoon.
“It takes a lot of discipline – you’ve got to take the time – and it takes some guidance,” he added.
No fibber, McGee enjoys the “sport.”
“My brother (Gabriel) was in the JROTC program before me, so I knew what it was like,” McGee, a junior, said. “I enjoyed the types of things you learn and the commitments that you can make in the program.”
In the future, she said, “Hopefully, I am going to be joining the Navy and being a Navy corpsman and taking college courses while I’m in the Navy to become a nurse.”
Naturally, it comes up in the hallways that there are three females on the regional championship team.
“When people are amazed by how well I shoot as a girl, I usually say it’s all the practice I put in as well as how I’m coached and how much I pay attention when I’m on the line,” she said. When “on the line,” McGee said, she thinks about “the ritual” to prepare herself, then “While I’m taking the shot, I make sure that my sights are aligned, breath control and trigger control.
“I want to shoot when I’m in the Navy; I think it’d be fun,” she added.
Camaraderie is important, McGee said.
“I’d say if Brown and Aldridge weren’t there for regionals, we probably wouldn’t make it as the top team.”
Seeing Utah for the first time, she said, “was mesmerizing.”
Alabama might not be as mesmerizing, but these Rams have a goal: Win a national championship.
Stop by the Rio Rancho Observer site for the full article and a team picture
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