See complete results from the 2017 Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) Nationals from the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, OH on the SSSF’s SHOT system.
Click on “leaderboards”, select the event you wish to see results for then select the leaderboard you would like to see.
There’s been LOTS happening around the country leading up to the 2017 SCTP and SASP National Championships. Here are a few stories from around the country in the past couple of weeks.
Name: Megan Carty
State: Iowa
Program: Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP)
Team: Steel Shooters of Traer
How the SASP has helped me as a young person: SASP has taught me the importance of commitment and open-mindedness. In order to further my shooting skills I have to stay committed to practicing and getting better and I have to stay open-minded about changing how I shoot.
About the NRA/SSSF All Scholastic Team
The All-Scholastic Team recognizes the top student athletes in the SSSF’s Scholastic Clay Target and Scholastic Action Shooting Program for their achievements in the classroom, on the range and in their communities. Through an application process, 2017 All-Scholastic Team Members have proven academic excellence by posting 3.0 or better grade point averages, shooting excellent scores in recent competition (95% in trap or skeet, 85% in sporting clays, 88% in international trap/skeet or 75 seconds or less for SASP) and by demonstrating outstanding community involvement.
See profiles for the 2017 SSSF/NRA All Scholastic Team Members
All SCTP/SASP teams and industry partners attending the National Championships in Marengo, Ohio, July 8-15, are invited to attend our youth scholarship fundraising banquet on Monday, July 10, at the Cardinal Center’s “Hitters Building” from 5-10 p.m.
Tickets are on sale now and are limited to the first 300 sold! There are two options for ticket purchases:
Proceeds from this banquet will be used in part for next year’s graduating seniors’ scholarships.
Enjoy a night out and meet industry partners as well as other parents from around the country! We would like to keep this banquet to adults as much as possible, as there will be adult beverages served at this banquet.
We will have live auction items including trips to Belize, Coast Rica, Africa and St. Thomas. There will be Alaska fishing trips, an elk and mule deer hunt, redfish trip in New Orleans, Argentina dove hunts and much more!
Silent auction items will be provided by many industry vendors and onsite vendors. Twenty five to 30 firearms will be raffled off through various games, including shotguns, rifles and pistols from many industry partners, such as CZ-USA, Browning, Beretta, Blaser, SKB, Mossberg, TriStar, Winchester, Fab Arm / Caesar Guerini, FN America, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, GLOCK and Sig Sauer!
So, bring your lucky rabbit’s foot and enjoy a great night out supporting our youth during the 2017 National Championships.
Onsite tickets will be available if 300 have not been sold prior to the event. Contact Amanda (Awondrash@sssfonline.com) or April (acarr@sssfonline.com) or stop by the Central Entry Building at the Cardinal Center during regular event hours to buy your tickets.
Come meet and learn from Max Michel – Sig Sauer!
All action shooting enthusiasts attending the 2017 National Championships at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, OH are invited to attend a unique learning opportunity presented by Sig Sauer. Clinic times are Thursday, July 13 at 11:00AM and 3:00PM and Friday, July 14 at 10:00AM at the action shooting range.
Max is the IPSC World Champions with six International team gold medals, a world-renowned firearms trainer and runs the Max Michel Training Academy. Max holds the current Guinness Book of World Records title for speed shooting. A former member of the Army Marksmanship Unit, Max spent ten years in the U.S. Army. Max is the only person in history to win all of the USPSA Area championships in the same season.
All action shooting enthusiasts attending the 2017 National Championships in Marengo, OH are invited to attend a unique learning opportunity presented by CZ-USA.
Matt Hopkins, CZ-USA pro shooter, will be at the Cardinal Center action shooting range on Thursday, July 13 at 9:30AM and and Friday, July 14 at 1:00PM and 3:00pm. Everyone is invited to attend.
Matt is a USPSA Grand Master, CZ-USA shooting team member, shooting a SP-01 Shadow. He is a Limited and Open ProAm Champion, won 7th at the 2014 USPSA Nationals, is a 6-time Missouri state Champion and has earned over 25 production division state titles.
Come join us for the Beat the Pro Side Match at the 2017 Scholastic Action Shooting Program national championships. Watch the video of @czusafirearms pro, Matt Hopkins set the time to beat! Updated times to beat will be posted here periodically throughout the week.
Stop by the action shooting range between noon July 8th and 4:00PM July 14th and for a nominal fee try to beat CZ USA Pro Matt Hopkins. Athletes will shoot a CZ-75 and Federal Premium Syntech ammunition. The Athlete that has the fastest time and beats the pro will win a CZ handgun donated to SASP by CZ USA.
Watch the YouTube video featuring CZ-USA pro shooters Matt Hopkins and Dave Miller discussing the side match and having some fun on the range!
The Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) is excited to announce our partnership with the Young Marines to become the competitive shooting component for the Young Marines organization.
“Our partnership with the SASP provides an opportunity for our Young Marines to receive quality instruction on firearms safety and marksmanship,” said Col William P. Davis USMC (Ret), national executive director and CEO of the Young Marines. “Combined with opportunities for competition within the SASP program and the intramural competition within our program, the partnership opens new doors for our Young Marines.”
SASP offers youth from grade school through college, the opportunity to safely participate in team-based action shooting sports which is a sport like no other in that it offers a level playing field across genders and age.
“We are excited to partner with the Young Marines,” said Rick Leach, interim national director of the SASP. “Both of our programs are targeted toward youth development, so it is a perfect fit. Glock is strong supporter of both our programs and introduced our programs to each other, knowing our programs they also thought us partnering made sense.”
The Young Marines strengthens the lives of America’s youth by teaching the importance of self-confidence, academic achievement, honoring veterans, good citizenship, community service, and living a healthy, drug-free lifestyle. The SASP is designed to instill in young people a set of personal values and character traits for fair play, compassionate understanding, individual responsibility, sportsmanship, self-discipline and personal commitment.
Since the Young Marines’ humble beginnings in 1959 with one unit and a handful of boys, the organization has grown to 275 units with 9,200 youth and 2,760 adult volunteers in 40 states, the District of Columbia and Okinawa with affiliates in other countries.
For more information, visit the official website at: http://www.YoungMarines.com.
Sign up for our text messaging service and email updates to keep updated about current events, schedule changes, weather delays and other important news at the 2017 National Championships in Marengo, OH. 
Text Messaging – Simply text SSSF2017 to 94253 to opt in and you may opt out at any time. The service is free to use and will only be used for tournament information. Standard messaging rates may apply.
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Reprinted with permission from Blue Press.
By Robin Taylor, www.taylorfreelance.com
Photos by Andre’ Dall’au, Jim Coffey
BOOM!
The report jars your insides. Everyone knows a 105mm Howitzer is loud, but the wave of overpressure stuns mind and body. As you recover, you see the breech slam closed and the Section Chief’s sabre tip drops slowly.
BOOM!
The Texas A&M Corps of Cadets brings their field howitzer to ball games, ceremonial events, and once a year, to their own pistol shoot. The 2017 Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) Southwest Regional has almost begun.
BOOM!
230 people cheer the last shot. Together with the gun, they’re shouting, “play ball!” in a distinctly gun-friendly way.
Here in Texas, just outside of College Station, youth teams from all over the West have traveled far to find out who’s the fastest. College students, cadets, high school, and middle school students alike shoot .22 pistols, 9mm service pistols, and just recently, .22 rifles in a fast-moving contest of speed and accuracy.
“This is the second-largest regional in the country,” says Rick Leach, SASP’s new director of development.
Rapid growth in Texas fueled by the Texas State Rifle Association Foundation (TSRAF) and the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets’ prestige has made the SW Regional one of the most popular regional events in the country. Teams from states as far away as Washington (a four-hour flight!) came to duke it out with not only the A&M Corps of Cadets (defending Collegiate National Champions) but also the South Texas juniors – the defending High School national champions. With 134 shooters on the line, the program’s growing strength and influence really showed.
“Last year we had 117 athletes in Texas,” says Leach. “So far this year, we’re at 150, and it’s early.”
He’s excited not just about the numbers, but about the demographic. At this year’s regional, 30% of the shooters were female.
“It’s the fastest-growing state in the nation right now,” says Leach.
Angela Gerlich, Executive Director of the TSRA Foundation brought together public financing, private financing, and successful local coaching to drive Texas SASP forward.
Under Mrs. Gerlich’s hand, discounted ammunition, steel target sets available for loan, expert coach trainers flown in from out of state, and above all the Texas Youth Action Shootout (TYAS) match series have all come about since August 2016.
To give you an idea of the panache shown by the Texas program, the night before the match, Texas A&M welcomed students to the military college’s Hall of Honor, showing off the history that propels the culture of A&M. A barbeque in the cadets’ dining hall (with the cadets present in full Class A uniform) added more prestige. The TSRAF and match sponsor Magpul made everyone welcome, setting the bar for hospitality very, very high!
According to Mrs. Gerlich, the Texas 4H program has more than 10,0000 students involved in the shooting sports. Most of that is shotgun, but handgun and rifle sports are coming on fast.
As far as SASP goes, “the part I’m most proud of is how we’re recruiting using the A&M cadets and coaches to go out and work with our Texas youth that are interested in the SASP program. They are the most experienced group with the program in Texas and have really stepped up to help. These cadets are now able to continue their leadership training in a whole new way, and it’s working,” says Gerlich.
On match day everyone has their game face on. Within a few minutes of the last cannon report, the distinct “ping-ping-ping” of gunfire on steel targets fills the air.
SASP courses closely resemble Steel Challenge – but no one uses a holster. Students start at low ready, then shoot five targets as fast as they can. Each shooter gets five runs on four sets of targets, discarding the slowest run. All told, the kids fire 100 rounds – plus any misses.
While the targets LOOK easy, the eye is deceived. It’s one thing to stand there and pot away at an 18X24” rectangle at 25 yards. When time is no object, the shots are easy, but once you get a timer out, everything changes.
“Go Fast” features four 18”X24” targets at just 7 yards, plus a 12” stop plate in the middle. Getting hits on the targets is easy – if you take your time. If you want to win, you’ve got to move. The fast guns shoot all five targets in under two seconds. The best ones shoot them in 1.5. That’s 1/3 second each, including a low-ready start!
“Focus” pushes the accuracy side, with small steel circles stashed as far back as 18 yards.
Walking around the range, clusters of kids wearing uniforms from their local gun clubs and schools smile and goof around. The adults are all business, discussing rules and herding their charges when needed, but the kids enjoy themselves at every turn.
Four-person teams get organized by equipment and age group. High School teams with .22s compete against other High School teams with .22s in “Senior Rimfire,” Middle School teams with 9mms compete in “Intermediate Centerfire.” Teams that don’t have enough of any one age group to make a team compete in “Open.”
Thanks to the support of the MidwayUSA Foundation donors (Larry Potterfield in particular), successful teams can win cash prizes that go into a special endowment to support the team. Most teams have relatively small endowments, but some successful fundraisers have pushed their endowments north of $250,000 – giving them more than $10,000 a year to help supply their athletes. State and private colleges have jumped in as well, offering scholarships to successful athletes and hiring coaches to lead college-level programs.
Yes folks, your kids can actually win a scholarship to shoot steel in college. The numbers are small, but you’ll see college recruiting stations at the SASP National Championship.
The Corps of Cadets and South Texas came into the 2017 match as the favorites, expected to win the centerfire and rimfire contests. The Cadets won centerfire by forfeit, posting a strong 192-second combined time. (Anything faster than 200 seconds is nationally competitive, putting A&M in strong position for the College nationals in March.) In rimfire, the South Texas crew brought their top gun – none other than Ethan Inocando – a name that Blue Press readers have seen before. Inocando did not disappoint, winning the rimfire match with a blistering time of 35.32 seconds. Only a handful of athletes can break the 40-second mark. However, one athlete does not a make a winning 4-person team. Hot on his heels was “Team Gotta” captain Jake Overstreet, shooting a 36.89 for his team from Custer, Washington. Overstreet and his red-shirted teammates controlled the top of the leaderboard, posting a 179 second combined time. That was good enough to beat second-place South Texas’ score of 203. Team Gotta’s JV crew stumbled when ladies’ Middle School champion Naomi McKay’s Buckmark exploded in her hand, but McKay’s group won the JV contest anyway, shooting the second-fastest time in the match – a 186.
SASP has started changing the dynamic for shooting sports in this country, making practical pistol into a scholarship-level sport. If you’d like to know more about the program, look them up at www.sssfonline.org
