The Juneau School District rifle team took on new challenges this season, seven to be exact.<\/p>\n
The seven-member club, which includes Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas: Yadaat.at Kalé high school students, joined Orion’s National Air Rifle League, a virtual league consisting of hundreds of teams that compete head-to-head in regularly scheduled matches.<\/p>\n
Since the beginning of the season in September, the Juneau club has shot against seven different schools, compiling a 5-2 record that could qualify them for postseason matches next month.<\/p>\n
“It just thrills me, it actually gets me very excited that they’re doing such a great job,” Juneau School District rifle team coach Dianne Zemanek said. “It makes me really proud of them.”<\/p>\n
The Orion scoring system uses computer software and scanners to score specially designed paper targets. The sheets of paper are fed into a scanner that scores them using an advanced image processing algorithm, according to the company’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n JDHS sophomore Nikki Lahnum scored a team-high 258 in Juneau’s final regular season match. The Juneau team defeated Washburn Rural Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps squad out of Topeka, Kansas, 967-911.<\/p>\n It was Juneau’s fourth victory in five tries, having previously bested American Legion Post 113, Central York Air Force JROTC and Ben Davis Marine Corps JROTC.<\/p>\n The team score is based on its four highest-scoring shooters. In the case of last week’s win over Washburn, that meant Lahnum, Isabelle Hansen, Carter Walker and Nelson Abel’s scores all went into the total.<\/p>\n “Most of the people on our team are hunters and go hunting, so I feel like that was a big involvement of our successes,” Lahnum said.<\/p>\n This is the first year the club has joined the virtual league, Zemanek said.<\/p>\n “We’re really excited because it allows us to compete with schools all over,” Zemanek said.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
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