Each year North Dakota Junior competitive shooters are offered a single opportunity to earn an invitation to compete in the USA Shooting Junior Olympic National Championships held annually in the Olympic Training Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The North Dakota rifle selection matches were held over the weekend of January 21 & 22, 2023, at the Minot Rifle and Pistol Club range. Young shooters from across the state competed with air rifles and smallbore (.22 rimfire) rifles in their effort to earn invitations to compete in the Junior Olympic National Championships which will be held in April this year at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. There are few things that mean more to youth across America who participate in the Olympic style shooting sports than the opportunity to compete in the National Junior Olympic Shooting Championships (NJOSC). So, these are very tough matches for these young people, as they are the only route to earn an opportunity to compete in the Junior Olympic Nationals. They must shoot a qualifying score during these matches or they simply cannot compete at the Nationals.
Jacob Vaagen, Rachel Vaagen, Isaac Vaagen, Lauren Stiven, Josie Brekhus and Casia Steinhaus, all of whom are junior members of the Lake Region Shooting Sports Association, traveled to Minot to fire the matches competing against other young shooters from across North Dakota. When the firing was complete, Casia Steinhaus had earned Gold medals in both the Women’s Air Rifle and Women’s Smallbore matches. These first place finishes automatically earned her an invitation to fire these events in the 2023 JO Nationals.
Jacob finished with a Bronze Medal in Men’s Air Rifle and a Silver for his performance in Men’s Smallbore Rifle. Rachel earned the Bronze medal in Women’s Smallbore Rifle.
The competition is very tough among these top North Dakota shooters, and this is the first year that a young lady from Devils Lake has won Gold in both the air rifle and smallbore events.
These young people have been training for years in order to earn this invitation to compete at the Olympic Training Center with the best junior rifle shooters in the nation. We wish them all the best. The complete match scores are available on the Orion Results at: http://www.orionresults.com/lrssand
