Rifle Team Victory Streak Continues  

After placing in the top five at the Orion Postal Match — their first match of the year — on October 9, 2020, MMA’s rifle team continued their victory streak, earning 2^nd place at the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) Postal Match on October 23^rd. Then, On October 24^th at the Show Me Shootout match, MMA’s rifle rookies took 1^st place and rifle veterans took 3^rd place. On November 2^nd, the MMA rifle team added a 3^rd place Orion Postal Match victory (out of 20 teams) to their impressive season resume; and on November 6^th, they won against Dyer County High School from Newburn, Tennessee at the NMSZ League Postal.

NMSZ Postal Match, October 23, 2020

Competing against 17 other sport teams, MMA’s rifle team took 2^nd place overall with a score of 1107. Individually, their results were striking. Against 133 other individual firers at the match:

• Lance Newland placed 6^th overall
• Jared Douthit placed 10^th overall
• Nathan Balvanz placed 12^th overall

At the match, the veteran team was represented by Lance Newland, Jared Douthit, Rene Garcia, Blake Morais, and Ruhan Chowrira. Details of their success is as follows…

• Beating his personal records in prone and overalls cores, Lance Newland took top team prone at 102.2, top team standing at 86.2 and top team total with 282.6. With this overall score, Newland set a new tenths-weighted overall quarter match record at MMA.  
• Jared Douthit took team high kneeling at 94.2 and set a personal record in the prone, standing and overall scores.
• Rene Garcia set a personal record in the prone firing position.
• Ruhan Chowrira set a new personal record in the prone firing position.

The rookie team was represented by Nathan Balvanz, Clayton Nelson, Ethan Zinser, Marco Afane, Charles Watson and Taylor Jennings. Details of their success is as follows…

• Nathan Balvanz took team high standing at 79.1, team high kneeling at 97.3 and team high total at 274.9. He beat his personal records in the prone, standing, kneeling and overall scores, and set a new tenths-weighted kneeling position quarter match record at MMA.
• Clayton Nelson took team high prone at 99.1 and set personal records in the prone and overall scores.
• Ethan Zinser set new personal records in the prone, kneeling and overall scores.
• Marco Afane set a personal record in prone firing position.
• Charles Watson set personal records in the standing, kneeling, and overall scores.
• Taylor Jennings set personal records in the kneeling and overall scores.

Show Me Shootout, October 24, 2020

Competing against 23 other teams at the Show Me Shootout, MMA’s veteran team – Jared Douthit, Lance Newland, Rene Garcia and Blake Morais – took 3^rd place at the Show Me Shootout competition with a high score of 2045. An incredibly close match, MMA fell only 10 points behind a first place win.

Notably, Jared Douthit took 12^th and Lance Newland took 18^th against 70 other individual firers with 535 and 522 respectively.

The rookie team – Ethan Zinser, Nathan Balvanz, Marco Afane and Charles Watson – did great in their own right, taking 1^st place in the new shooter tournament against 6 other teams with a score of 1878 points, outscoring the 2nd place team by 88 points.

Notably, Ethan Zinser took 1^st overall with 499, Nathan Balvanz 2^nd overall with 492 and Marco Afane 5^th overall with 480 against 39 other firers.

Orion Postal Match, November 2, 2020

On November 2, cadets took another top spot in the Orion Postal.  Despite missing their highest scoring and third-highest scoring veteran rifle team members – Lance Newland and Rene Garcia, respectively – the team took 3^rd place out of 20 teams.

Most notably, Jared Douthit placed 10^th overall against 147 other individual firers; and rookie Nathan Balvanz placed 12^th overall against those 147 other firers, making him the highest scoring rookie firer at the competition. Blake Morais and Ruhan Chowrira also placed 15^th and 25^th respectively.

NMSZ League Postal, November 7, 2020

On November 7, MMA's rifle team outscored Dyer County High School from Newburn, Tennessee at the NMSZ League match. This win puts their current standing league score 5-0 with the NMSZ League.

The Maroon Team — which included Jared Douthit, Marco Afane, Blake Morais and Nathan Balvanz — scored 1017, beating Newburn's 883 score. The Gold Team — which included Taylor Jennings, Charles Watson, Ruhan Chowrira and Zijie Zhou — scored 659 to Newbern's 359.