The 2004 South Carolina State Championship

The 2004 South Carolina State Championship took place on April 16th and 17th in Anderson, SC. Linda Chico was the statistician for the match and once again held up to her great reputation of starting the match on time and getting the scores posted just minutes after the last shot is fired. Great job Linda! There were 117 shooters at this year's competition and 9 of the competitors were Grand Masters (GM's.)

I have never been to this range before and wasn't sure what to expect at the competition. When I arrived on Friday, I was very impressed with the stages. There were a total of 8 stages with over 200 rounds. Usually at a State level match you will see a lot of close targets and very easy shots. Well, not this State match. The stages were very balanced with speed and accuracy. Now that I think about it, one stage had 12 targets, all at about 25 yards and another stage had 11 targets at about 20 yards and 4 head shots varying from 7-12 yards. Not to mention all the hard cover and no shoots placed throughout all the stages. I think the stage designers did extremely well. There are a couple of things I did notice about some of stages that should have been fixed before the match started. I'll just name one of the examples in the report. If the match officials read this and want some input, just send me an email and I would be glad to help you. One stage gave you the option to shoot 30 rounds, completing the stage from one position. I just didn't think that was a very good design. If they would have made the vision barriers hard cover, it would have forced the competitors to move around a bit, making it a more exciting stage.

The match began promptly at 8:00 on Saturday morning. Chris Tilley and I were on the same squad and we were able to keep track of the scores with his palm pilot. The first couple of stages went great for me as I jumped ahead of Chris Tilley by 27 points. Stage three went in Chris' favor making my lead about 22 points. Stage four was the stage that would decide the match and we all knew it. It was the course allowing you to shoot 30 rounds from one position. To do this you had to shoot a couple of targets basically blind folded through soft cover. It was kind of a guessing game. I had some serious problems here giving up nearly 30 points. At this point, half of the match had been shot and I was about 6 points behind. I won 3 out of the last 4 stages but it wasn't enough.

Results Open:
1. Chris Tilley 100%
2. Max Michel 99.41%
3. David Christen 94.09%

It was yet another great battle with Chris. It's always fun and very good practice to have it so close throughout the match. It looks like we have been flip flopping wins against each other this year. I guess the Area 6 will be my pay back this time. What do you think Chris? Just joking, the competition is always fun and I look forward to it!

If you ever see Linda Chico and the rest of the staff, please let them know how great of a job they did. Many of the RO's were from other states and paid their own way to the match. This shows their love and dedication to the sport! A big thanks to all the staff, for a job well done!

Until next time,
Max Michel, Jr.