EHS rifle team finishes second in conference

The Enterprise High School JROTC rifle team finished its winning season Dec. 13 when it faced Daleville High School in its final conference match at EHS.

The rifle team finished second in the conference at 8-1 after a 1095-1072 loss against the DHS rifle team.

The conference is made up of nine area high schools and works similarly to how a football conference runs with teams playing each other weekly.

Master Sgt. John Albrecht said it was a close match until the very end as they trailed by only one point at the end of the second of three sporter rifle matches.

At the start of the season, Albrecht said he knew he had a good team with a lot of potential.

"At the beginning of the year, we shot in Greenville against six Alabama schools and we took first and second with my precision team taking first and my novice team coming in second over the other high schools," Albrecht said.

The potential for growth is what Albrecht sees, saying the team has four or five good novice shooters that he says are definitely going places in the next couple years.

"If they're shooting this good now, they'll really be doing good three years from now," he said.

Albrecht said from August to December, the team is already shooting 260 out of the 300 range.

At the rate they're going, Albrecht said, the team shows real promise.

It takes a high level of focus, patience and consistency for the shooters to make their targets, he said.

"You have to do everything exactly the same in order to shoot high scores," Albrecht said. "If you're inconsistent, you're not going to get that accurate of a shot. A lot of it comes down to concentration and repetition."

The team practices these skills daily for one to two hours working on the kneeling and standing positions.

The JROTC program at EHS continues to grow in popularity too. All 18 lanes of the JROTC's rifle range are full.

"I've actually had to turn kids away this year," Albrecht said. "Next year, I've got three or four parents who have emailed me about their child trying out for the rifle team."