Right on target, Local teen places in national shooting competition

From June 23 to 28, youths from around the nation gathered in Grand Island, Nebraska, to put their shooting skills to the test at the 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships. A total of 708 competitors representing 40 states participated at the event, and local teen Samuel Ferguson performed among the best of them.

Ferguson earned his entry to the championships by placing in the top four at the state-level competition held last year. This year was the first time the 17-year-old competed at the national level, and  he and his teammates did very well.

According to Ferguson, the contest organizers had all 64 competitors in his first event line up at 8 a.m. and shoot their rifles in unison. He appreciated this fun start to the competition, but it was the second day of shooting when Ferguson and his teammates performed well enough to earn an award.

The group placed fourth out of 16 teams in the Muzzleloading 25-Yard Novelty Team Event and received ribbons. Ferguson explained that the targets for this event were images on paper targets and that certain areas of a target were worth more points. For instance, the first target was an image of bottles stacked in a pyramid, and the shooter gained extra points if he or she hit the neck of a bottle.

On the last day of shooting, Ferguson and his teammates earned their highest placement by placing second out of 16 teams in the Muzzleloader Silhouettes Event. For this accomplishment, the teammates were each awarded a medal, and on Friday, Ferguson’s muzzleloading team was awarded another medal for placing third overall of the 16 muzzleloader teams.

Ferguson said he is especially pleased to have done as well as he did because the 4-H national competition is the second-largest shooting competition in the world. He said that the only competition that is larger is an international contest that has competitors from over 100 countries.

Ferguson took advantage of his opportunity to excel at the national contest, and he followed it up by performing well at this year’s state competition, which took place July 11-14.

He placed highly in multiple disciplines, but Ferguson’s highest placements were first for his class in 3-D Archery, second for his class in Blueface Archery, second in .22 Rifle and second–by one point–in Muzzleloader. He thinks, though, that he will most likely compete in either the air rifle or air pistol events if he goes to nationals again next year, but he is not yet certain.

He is a fan of all the various shooting disciplines and believes that he is particularly skilled at archery.

According to Ferguson, one key to his success in shooting sports is staying calm.

“Stress makes you shake,” he said.

“He is calmer than most teenagers his age,” his mother, Deanna Ferguson, added.