Riflery: Steady, Aim, Fire!
Photo by Analicia Kapua
MIL air riflery competitors shoot from the kneeling position at MIL shoot 5 at Kamehameha Maui, Sept. 16. The top individual shooters, one boy and one girl, were both Kamehameha Maui athletes.
The Kamehameha Schools Maui air riflery team is off to a great start. At the last three games, the boys air riflery team placed first, and the girls team placed in the top five in the MIL.
Three of Kamehameha’s shooters, senior Jacob Julian, junior Kody Cambra and sophomore Kuualoha Bailey, placed first in the individual standings at Shoot #4, held Sept. 16, 2017 at the Kamehameha Maui gymnasium. Julian and Cambra tied with a score of 261, and Bailey scored 257.
After the team members saw their scores, it came as a surprise for Bailey to see where she had ranked. This is the first time she had ever placed first in a Maui Interscholastic air riflery meet, and the girls team placed third.
“It shocked me a lot. After I finished shooting, I thought that I had a pretty decent score, but then when my teammates told me my actual score, I was so shocked I didn’t really know how to react,” she said.
Head coach William Julian has been coaching the team for four years.
“He pushes the same thing over and over,” his son and first-place finisher Jacob Julian said. “He really emphasizes having fun because that is the main thing about it, and he just tries to…make practice interesting.”
With three more games to go, the KSM air riflery team is well prepared. The next game will be a postal meet, with each team shooting on their own practice ranges separately, but the next MIL shoot, #6, will be Sept. 30 at Saint Anthony School.
