When a friend suggested to Eric Lukkarinen his son might be interested in the sport of shooting he checked it out and liked what he saw.
As a result, then 10-year-old Asher became a member of the 17 South Rod and Gun Club which is located on the Bryan – Liberty County line and serves youth from the two counties.
“He took to it,” Lukkarinen said. “I think it’s a great sport for kids. It teaches them awareness and responsibility. They have challenges, struggles and competition. They learn to deal with a lot of different things.
“I believe this will help him become a more responsible adult.”
A year and 30,000 practice rounds later Asher, 11 and a sixth-grader at Richmond Hill Middle School, got rewarded for his hard work when he finished fourth nationally in the Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) tournament last month.
Shooting is a sport where an athlete does not have to be the strongest or fastest to achieve success regardless of gender. It is one of the fastest growing youth sports in the country and one in three participants are female, according to SASP.
Asher competed in the Intermediate Entry Level Division which is for first-year shooters who are in either elementary or middle school. He just finished the fifth grade at Francis Meeks Elementary.
Also competing in the same division was fellow Richmond Hill middle schooler Gracie Mae Severs, 12, who finished third in the girls competition.
The national tournament was held in Marengo, Ohio, at SASP’s Cardinal Shooting Center and it featured 10 different divisions. The event was conducted over 10 days in July and involved more than 5,000 shooters.
Blake Reed finished fifth in the senior division. In the high school division a team shooting as Richmond Hill High School finished 42nd out of 731 teams. That team was comprised of Jeremiah Hearn, Bryce Puckett, Jacob Hearn, Wyatt Henderson and Jake Fruchti.
Although GHSA offers riflery with 110 schools fielding teams — Camden County won the state championship last spring — Richmond Hill does not have either a varsity or club team.
Asher and Gracie Mae shot in the “rimfire from sight” class with .22 caliber weapons and it is speed shooting competition. Asher also finished fifth in optics rifle and they joined with Nathan Pettis, 14, and Elizabeth “Bizzy” Carlisi, 11, to finish 18th in the team competition.
“In speed shooting they set up five targets at different intervals,” Lukkarinen said. “They then set off an alarm and from there whoever shoots the fastest and cleanest wins. Of the different sets of targets the four best scores are used.”
In order to qualify for the nationals, teams and individuals had to compete at the regional and state levels in order to advance. Pettis earned all-state honors in Georgia while Carlisi was an all-state alternate. “Marion McQueen is the coach and he does a great job,” Lukkarinen said. “He’s working on further developing the team for the upcoming season which starts in September. I thought that throughout the competition these kids showed the character we wanted to see.”
