Athena Lee Shooting

June 3-5, 2011

Trying to keep my balance! Thank you, Alvin, for this picture!

Robert Porter and gang at The Double Tap Ranch have done it again. The DTC (Double Tap Championship) this year was a great match with the theme, Atlantis. 12 stages designed with this theme in mind ranged from sea serpents half buried on the ground to “Atlantian Guards” (cut out of styrofoam) guarding the hallway and you plowing through them to shoot targets and so much more! At first glance, it seems like a hoser match with short-range, wide-open targets but as luck (well, MY luck) would have it, it turned out to be accuracy match for me.

I wasn’t supposed to win this match. The shooting gods were feeling very mischievous (more like REALLY MEAN) at this match. We shot our first 3 stages on Saturday morning and proceeded to chrono where my bullets failed to make Major. W…T…H…???!!!?? I couldn’t believe it. I was more or less 30fps off my usual reading. All I needed was 10fps more to pass. UGH. It made me feel a little bit relieved when I found out later that it wasn’t just me. My friends from California, Valerie Levanza and Roy Malunda (among others) were more or less 30fps off as well but they both made major. The match used an Oehler Chronograph. I had chronographed my ammunition a few weeks before and they made major comfortably. But then again, I was using a different brand chronograph.

That put a gigantic wrench in my game plan. I composed myself thinking my first 3 stages were competitive enough. I just had to focus just a tad more to make sure I get those A’s. You’re probably thinking, “But isn’t that what you MUST do in the first place?”. Well…yes and no. With high speed stages like what they had at the Double Tap, time is a big factor as well as accuracy. You can afford to drop some points shooting C’s but up to a certain extent. There is a mind-blowing, mathematical equation out there somewhere that I cannot explain that says, “As long as your are doing it at X time, you can afford to get X number of C’s or even a D.” But as we all know, the only thing you can control in your shooting is your hits. NOT your time.

I love shooting with friends!

Valerie, my friend and former teammate from back in our Philippine Team days, is a very strong shooter and competitor. Like I said, my first 3 stages (pre-chrono stages) were strong enough to be competitive so I had to just make sure I won’t miss or shoot D’s. Shooting minor REALLY hurts your points. A’s are still 5 points but everything else is 1 point less i.e. B’s and C’s are now 3 points instead of 4 and a D is 1 point instead of 2. I LOVE pseudo-hosing stages like what they had at the match and having me go minor is like telling me to not have fun and go to work by emphasizing more on the hits. Poop. I picked up 2 misses at our next two stages, bad hits on the next and another miss on the one after. Even bigger poop.

At that point, I KNEW it was over for me because Valerie shot a consistent match and she didn’t have a single penalty. On Saturday night, I computed that she had about a 47-50-point lead and I had to shoot all 4 stages the next day super fast and ALL ALPHAS. Yeah, right. BUT, like I stated earlier, the shooting gods apparently changed their mind the last minute because she had a horrific jam on the second to the last stage. I didn’t think much of it but little did I know that it was the game changer. And it was. The scores came out and alas, I was 0.9725 ahead of her. And I re-iterate…. Shooting Gods = MEAN. Oh and then I won a chronograph from the raffle…Shooting Gods = SICK sense of humor.

Last year, we shot this match in March…32°F but with windchill more like 12°F and snowing sideways. This year, temperatures hit over 100°F on both days. It was REALLY hot. But despite extreme temperatures, the dedicated staff at the match worked tirelessly to make it an incredible experience. From the MD who you could see all over the range on his 4-wheeler making sure everything was running smoothly to the range officers running people in the heat with smiles on their faces, it still doesn’t cease to amaze me what an awesome community we have in the shooting sport. A big thank you to Robert Porter and his super-awesome group of people who braved the heat because they love the sport. I will definitely shoot this match again next year and I can’t wait to see what the theme is going to be next!

Click here for the final results of the match.

And here’s the video that I compiled showing the colorful stages of the match. Enjoy!