A SECOND place in the NRA Shield and Combined AAGPS selection for Year 12 student Luke Rorke were highlights for The Armidale School in this year's AAGPS Shooting competition, held at Hornsby Rifle Range on July 23 to 24.
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The first morning of competition was for the Rawson Cup (shot at 500m and 600m) with TAS placing sixth.
Consistency improved in the afternoon in the NRA Shield shot at 600m with the First VIII finishing second, behind Newington College and a single point ahead of Sydney Boys' High.
The next day teams competed for the Buchanan Shield, a 300m eight-shot deliberate stage followed by a snap application in which TAS came sixth.
Overall the TAS First VIII finished fifth place, as did TAS in the Second VIII Shield, also shot on the final day.
Consistent shooting by Luke Rorke resulted in an aggregate score of 192 from a possible 200 including 10 centre bulls - the seventh highest individual aggregate in the competition.
"I'd been pretty reasonable at snap so I wasn't too nervous about that format," he said.
This rewarded him with a place in the Combined AAGPS team which competed in the Josephson Shield on July 28 against experienced under 25 shooters from three district rifle associations and two combined universities teams.
Of the four stages, shot at 300m, 400m, 500m and 600m, Luke scored 'possibles' - the maximum possible score - twice, in the 300m (a score of 50.003) and 500m (50.006), and achieved 48.006 at 600m.
Luke captained the GPS B team which came third in the 300m event.
"I was pleased with the way I shot at GPS but making the combined team was a surprise," Luke said.
"We shot the 300m in the morning and the position of the sun was much better than during GPS with not much wind at all. It was a really good experience."
The AAGPS competition was preluded by the Fiona Reynolds Memorial Match over 300m, 500m and 600m contested at Malabar Range on 20 July, in which the top TAS team came second behind Sydney Boys' High School for the Prorak Shield.