David Wong wins junior Sporting Clays tournament
DAVID Wong battled 19 other shooters, in addition to topping the Super Six Shoot-off, to win the Jamaica Skeet Club’s first post-pandemic junior sporting clays tournament organised by the American International School (AISK) of Kingston.
The tournament, dubbed the AISK Junior Sporting Clays Competition, was played on Sunday at the Jamaica Skeet Club’s head office in Portmore.
Wong and Lori Ann Harris outshot 18 shooters to post a near-perfect 48 out of 50 targets in the preliminary round. The other four Super Six shooters were Zaniel Knight (46), Noah Vaughan (43), John Meany (42) and Nicholas Debillis (40).
The Super Six shooters faced 18 rounds, shot from three stations of six targets each and starting with the shooter possessing the lowest score. After two rounds all the shooters were lined up in the order that they started. It came down to the final round to separate the top two.
Wong shot five out of six in the third round while Harris dropped two shots to end with four out of six. That one extra shot gave Wong the tournament. His overall score was 64 while Harris’s score of 63 landed the runner-up spot. Harris is only the second female shooter to make it to a Super Six shoot-off locally.
“It really put a smile on my face, makes me feel happy. It really solidifies that I can actually do this and I can actually be the best,” said Wong.
He also said that getting the win was “a big relief right now because it’ a lot of mental preparation and mental stress while shooting”. He also said that he was not affected by the pressure of the Super Six shoot-off “because I am taught to focus on my score and focus on one bird at a time, and then that ultimately got me to the win”.
The top three in the preliminary round were Junior ‘A’ Boys – David Wong 48, Zaniel Knight 46; Junior A Girls – Lori Ann Harris 48; Junior ‘B’ Boys – Noah Vaughan 43, John Meanny 4, Nicholas Debellis 40; Junior B Girls were Sydney Wong 39, Lianna Burgess 25, Victoria Walker 18; Junior ‘C’ Boys – Toby Melville 3, Kristian Holbrooke 38, Nathaniel Wong 36 (by long run); and Sub Junior Boys – Levi Clarke 35, Alexander Cowan 31.
Jared Rogers of AISK welcomed the return of the junior competition.
“We had an idea that we wanted to get the juniors back out shooting in a tournament, and that was all that today was about — just restarting the competition for the juniors.
“I think it’s great. I was happy to see everybody have a positive experience with it and it was a good day and they had a lot of fun. I was especially happy to see several girls come out, and they shot well and so that’s good.”
According to coach and former president of the Jamaica Skeet Club, Khaleel Azan, “This is very pleasing. We have not had a tournament for three years and this is really the future of the sport. To get 20 juniors to come and shoot today, I really have to thank Jared Rogers and Alveta Knight of AISK. We are very pleased with the turnout and the result that we had here today.”
Shaun Barnes, who also coaches the juniors, supported the tournament’s return. “The junior tournament is a necessity. It helps the kids in so many ways — the discipline, it helps to build the self-image, the development of not only the sport, but themselves. It is something that we miss. We need and we would love corporate Jamaica to get more involved so that we can grow the kids and we can help them to be better citizens.”
The six competing schools were host AISK, Ardenne, Calabar, Emmanuel Christian Academy, Hillel and JC.