DURC news May 2011

Sparks

From the DUCAC website:

DU Rifle Club News, May 2011

Dublin University Rifle Club (DURC) is almost finished another successful year of target shooting. This year we had over 300 members with over 80 active shooters and over 30 active competitors. We took away prizes at every competition we entered often making a clean sweep in individual classes. DURC members now occupy the majority of spaces on both the smallbore and air rifle national classification lists with DURC Alumni taking up many more places. Unfortunately we didn't win Colours or Intervarsities this year despite our best efforts though we did manage to beat the Dublin University Paintball and Speedball Society (DUPSS) at their own game on a paintball trip in February. Work continues in the club to increase member participation in fullbore shooting and three position smallbore shooting.

At our AGM on March 11th, Michael Cullinan was voted in as Club Captain for 2011/12 with Heather McLoughlin and Ian Beatty-Orr as the Club Secretary and Treasurer, respectively. Michael Cullinan was also awarded Club Colours by this year's Captain, Aisling Miller, for his improvement in shooting combined with the time and effort he put in to this year's Novice Squad and his Competition Secretary duties. Siobhan Scarlett was awarded 'The Kennedy Trophy for Outstanding Beginner' for being the year's top novice although special mention also goes to Emily Wallace who was not far behind her.

We launched a new website at http://rifle.tcdlife.ie this year. It is still somewhat under construction but many thanks are owed to Mike Dunne and Siobhan Scarlett for the development of the site.

With the Indoor .22 and Air Rifle seasons almost over, the Internal Ladder Card Competition for 2010/11 is almost at an end with David Franklin holding the top overall position in .22 and Aisling Miller holding the top overall position in Air Rifle out of the student members. Training for our 20+ squad members (both Senior and Junior) continues throughout the summer.

Preparations are well under way for our Golden Jubilee Celebrations in January 2012. Following communications with some of the founding members of the club it is likely there will be a series of competitions held next spring with a special competition held for a founding-members team versus a current-members team. Information can be found on our Linkedin page 'Dublin University Rifle Club Alumni'

DURC Colours/Intervarsities Squad 2010/11

RECENT COMPETITIONS:
Colours/Intervarsities: The annual Colours/Intervarsities competition was held in Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club in Meath on March 5th. Unfortunately we were beaten by a strong UCD team on the day who had upped the intensity of their training earlier in the year having seen the strength of our Novice squad. The Senior Squad lost by 5 points while the Junior Squad lost by 130 points (one of our novices did not finish). Some pride was restored on the day for DURC with Aisling Miller (competitively taking up an air rifle for the first time since her novice year in 2007/08) winning the Captain's Match and shooting the best overall score with 554 and Siobhan Scarlett taking the bragging rights for best novice overall with a score of 543. Nearly all DURC shooters shot new personal bests on the day.

MNSCI Spring Open Competition: The first outdoor 50m competition for the club this year was held in the National Shooting Centre outside Tullamore. DURC had many smallbore novices at the competition and once again took home a good haul of prizes. David Franklin took 3rd in Class B. Logan Hasenbeck, Heather McLoughlin and Michael Cullinan took 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in Class C as did Siobhan Scarlett, Ian Beatty-Orr and Claudio Sansone in Class D.

NTSA Airgun Nationals 2011: The Air Nationals were held in UCD over the second weekend in April. DURC were expected to take home some prizes and didn't disappoint. Due to equipment and time issues Aisling Miller shot in the men's 60 shot match rather than the ladies 40 shot match. She was the only DURC member to reach the men's final with a qualifying score of 544 but had a disappointing final score of 91.0. She finished 8th overall in the men's competition but would have finished 3rd overall in the ladies with her 40 shot score of 371 which is 4 points off the Olympic Minimum Qualifying score. This was not bad news for DURC though as this allowed novice shooter Emily Wallace to take 3rd place in the ladies competition with a qualifying score of 365 and a final score of 96.3 . Siobhan Scarlett came 5th in the ladies competition for DURC with a qualifying score of 340 and a final score of 87.4.

For DURC in the 60 shot competition, Aisling Miller took bronze in Class B. Logan Hasenbeck, Frank Lavery and Ivan de Wergifosse took gold, silver and bronze, respectively, in Class C and David Franklin took gold in Class D. In the 40 shot competition. Emily Wallace took gold in class B and Katharina Wilhelm and Heather McLoughlin took gold and silver respectively in Class C.

NTSA National 25 yard Championships 2011: The end of the Indoor smallbore season was marked with the Indoor Nationals held in Rathdrum on May 1st. Unfortunately for DURC the National shooting calendar is not overly sympathetic to the University Calendar and many
members stayed home studying for the impending exams. However in true DURC fashion we still managed to take away prizes with Conor McDermottroe winning the competition overall with 590 in qualifying and 101.9 in the final. David Franklin and Aisling Miller took 1st and 2nd in Class B. Another clean sweep for DURC in Class C with Logan Hasenbeck, Michael Cullinan and Bernard Ward taking gold, silver and bronze and Siobhan Scarlett took home gold in Class D. DURC also won the 'Trinity Shield' in the team competition, taking it away from the Defence Forces Shooting Team (DFST) for the first time in almost a decade (although the shield was not presented on the day as the DFST hadn't brought it to the competition). The DURC team was composed of Conor McDermottroe, Vladimir Untila and David Franklin.

It wasn't me!

That team of three win is really nice, have to say. Shows the strength of the club as a whole is progressing nicely. I'll say this much. They won't get it back so easily now!