Colorado’s Merit Academy Holds Inaugural Club Championship
September 3, 2024
Submitted by Michael Theimer
Merit Academy Shooting Sports Club completed its first ever Club Championship. After its first full school year of practice sessions with over 20,000 pellets down range since September last year, a competition was conducted May 18-20 to identify the first ever Club Champions.
Participants competed in air rifle, air pistol or both – their choice. They were excited going into the competition with several who said, “I’m going to win this.” After months of practice, their confidence was high.
Engraved medals were awarded to:
Theron Vonderhar – Boys Rifle Champion
Reese Mitchell – Girls Rifle Champion and Girls Pistol Champion
Colton Waggoner – Boys Pistol Champion
Nova Von Bach and Marley Goins came in second and third place, respectively, in the Girls Rifle competition.
Everett Swan and Nate Peters came in second and third place, respectively, in the Boys Rifle competition.
Remington Mitchell and Marley Goins came in second and third place, respectively, in the Girls Pistol competition.
Theron Vonderhar and Everett Swan came in second and third place, respectively, in the Boys Pistol competition.
The Club student athletes range in age from 7 to 13 years old. With Merit Academy adding 11th grade next school year, we hope to start up a first ever varsity rifle team to be coached by Mike Theimer, a 1976 Olympian.
We will be adding electronic targets in September, which will almost double practice sessions capacity – eliminating target changing time and providing immediate shot-by-shot feedback to the athletes via individual monitors next to the athlete’s firing point. Big screen monitors will give spectators live action, shot-by-shot view of each athlete’s target in real time.
Merit Academy Shooting Sports Club is the first ever shooting sports program/club in a public school in Woodland Park/Teller County. We are raising money to increase the number of air rifles and air pistols, which will help increase the training sessions capacity and provide dedicated air rifles for the varsity rifle team. We have a ‘Donate’ button on our Club webpage: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=M9S6DYDM3FZKC
More information can be found on the Merit Academy Shooting Sports Club web page: https://www.merit.academy/shooting-club
Go Bullseye Bears!