Community Corner

Durham Teen Invited to 'World Series' of Shooting Competitions

Will Witecki of Durham is competing this weekend in The National Matches, a month long shooting competition held at Camp Perry, Ohio and considered the "World Series of the Shooting Sports.”

The 16-year-old is a member of the Connecticut State Junior High Power team, an invitation-only group of teen marksman that compete in shooting events here in Connecticut and throughout the country using high-powered rifles.

Witecki, who will be a junior this fall at Coginchaug High School, started shooting competitively about three years ago after learning about guns at a young age.

“When I was four my dad got a .22 [caliber rifle] for me. It’s kind of been a part of my life and my whole family for a long time,” he said.

These days, Witecki shoots an AR-15, a weapon he says is popular among target shooters and gun enthusiasts because of its accuracy and ease of use.

“It’s an easy gun to handle. When I was in North Carolina shooting, there were 15 girls shooting with us. There was one girl, she was twelve. A lot of them were smaller and they can handle it,” he said.

Competitive shooting is similar to football or baseball in that participants compete against one another to earn the highest score. In shooting, that means hitting the bulls-eye from as far away as 1,000 yards. But unlike mainstream sports where the focus is almost entirely on beating your opponent, Witecki says, camaraderie often trumps competition on the shooting range.

“My coach once said, ‘Shooting is the only sport where people are going to try their hardest to have you beat them,’” he said. “If you’re not shooting well, someone next to you might point out, ‘Hey, this is what you’re doing wrong.’ It’s great to have that.”

“It’s still competitive,” he said.

Witecki began shooting competitively at Blue Trail Range in Wallingford, which hosts high school rifle teams including Xavier High School in Middletown and Platt High School in Meriden.

He hopes to convince school officials in Region 13 to bring back the school’s once popular rifle team before he graduates.

“It’s one of the safest sports. Everyone thinks it’s dangerous because there’s guns and it could be dangerous but the whole sport is really safety conscious,” he said.

Shooting also requires a high level of skill.

Members of the High Power team are not allowed to use high-tech optic scopes to narrow down on their target but instead use iron sights – standard on guns - which are adjusted to account for elevation, distance and wind direction.

“I actually prefer it over a scope. I think it’s more of a challenge,” Witecki said. “With the iron sights, you do have to concentrate more, you have to figure out the yard line and move your sights. You have to calculate the wind.”

Like a scorecard in golf, each shot is meticulously logged in a shooter’s book which Witecki uses to measure his improvement.

“You can pick up on different habits, like when you’re pulling the trigger the gun has a tendency to pull to the bottom right,” he said.

On a recent trip to Butner, North Carolina with his team, Witecki received marksman training from the Marine Corps rifle team and took first place in the unclassified division after finishing with a score of 714 out of 800.

He left Durham on Thursday for Ohio, for a two-week trip that will include both team and individual competitions against the country’s top youth shooters.

Competitive shooting, like other high school sports, can lead to collegiate offers and scholarships. Former members of the High Power team have gone on to the United States Naval Academy and West Point, he pointed out.

“I really enjoy doing it,” Witecki said. “I want to see how long I can do it.”


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