Tallulah Falls School’s rifle team made history by winning the CMP National Championship, taking gold to cap off a legendary 2023-24 season.
The first day, TFS was turning heads after tying the school 3-position 3×20 record (shot at the GHSA State Championships). That had Tallulah Falls ahead by a single point going into Wednesday’s final match. St. Louis University HS (SLUH) was a close second.
TFS completed the Kneeling position with a 781 out of 800, five points higher than the previous day. SLUH fired a 778 in its relay. Prone was a consistent 794 but one point shy of Day 1, leaving a 4-point increase. Brianna Walter at this point had shot max points in both positions and with a 4-point team increase over Tuesday, more spectators were observing the TFS team shoot. SLUH shot 796 in Prone.
Finally, in the Standing position, Leah Rogers rose to the occasion with a 195 (PR) and increased her score by eight and Chloe Erwin shot four points higher (189) to give the team a 764, seven points higher than Day 1. SLUH had problems with the difficult standing offhand position and shot 744.
The resulting match score of 2239 is a new school record. According to coach Tim Stamey, not only would that have won GHSA this year, but would have been the second-highest score ever shot in a GHSA State Championship. Rifle has been a high school sport in Georgia since the 1940s, switching from .22 long rifle to air rifle in 1992.
After 480 qualification shots tying the school record the first day and setting a new school record the second, the two-day total for TFS to win the Scholastic 3P Precision Air Rifle National Championship was 4,667, while SLUH as the runner-up shot 4645.
Walter led with a 1184 score, with Rogers at 1164. Chloe Erwin had a 1162 and Joseph McGahee a 1157.
- Match totals for Day 1: Walter 592, McGahee 580, Erwin 579, Rogers 577 = 2328
- Match totals for Day 2: Walter 592, Rogers 587 (PR), Erwin 583 (PR), McGahee 577 = 2339 (SR)
TFS Rifle Team 1 also came in 8th in the club category, which is made up of travel teams like those hosted at National Olympic Training Centers across the country including Colorado Springs. TFS Rifle Team 2 did very well and finished 12th.
“This little 1A team has finished in the GHSA top-10 with a runner-up over the last three years in a sport dominated by 7A schools,” says Stamey. “To overcome this adversity in a David vs Goliath scenario and win the National Championship is the stuff movies are made of! I am so blessed to have this GREAT Team that I have seen over the last year work nights, weekends, and over the summer firing more than 63,000 precision shots down range in a basement hidden from public view. The only sad part of this National Championship was to watch the melancholy of our four seniors (Marc Crotta, Ethan Simmons, McGahee, and Walter) as they shot their final shots for our team. Coach Neal discussed with me a few weeks ago that due to the switch to GIAA, he would like us to focus on the National level. We did, and we like gold medals better than silver!”
