Shania Harrison-Lee with her trophy haul from the North vs South Shoot in the Hutt Valley over the weekend. Photo SuppliedEight members of the Target Shooting Mid Canterbury team made the most of a trip over the Cook Strait, bringing home a set of excellent results for the North vs South Shoot in Petone.

Record scores were posted both by individuals and from team results.

The South Island managed to take a hard fought win in the veterans’ match, but were narrowly beaten in the juniors.

The North Island also took honours in the women’s (with record scores), inaugural men’s match and in the open match.

Emma Smith (394.19) set the pace and acquitted herself brilliantly in the junior match, shooting two possibles (100s) to receive New Zealand honours for the first time.

She backed this up with a good performance in the New Zealand match (293) on Sunday, and she also scored creditably in the women’s match on Saturday.

Colin Taylor, in his first appearance at this level of competition, held his nerve and put all his excellent preparation to good use, finishing with 389.14 and earning himself a Silver Fern.

He was also part of the only South Island team to take honours over the North for the weekend.

TJ Stewart (SI Men) showed patches of what he is capable of and Nina McKenzie (SI Women) was steady but with a slightly widened group, neither quite achieved what they were after.

Steve McArthur (SI Men and SI Open Captain), who has had a rugged campaign with broken gear that necessitated major changes six weeks out, shot brilliantly in the men’s match to top score for the South (396.26) and book his spot in the New Zealand Men’s team, where he performed well (293).

Sandy Bennett (SI Women and SI Open) shot creditably in both matches, with a pair of 391s and was just shy of NZ team qualification in both matches.

Charlotte McKenzie (SI Juniors) in her first appearance at this level, showed real steel on the mound and pushed hard for NZ inclusion, finishing 13th for a 12 person NZ Junior (U21) team.

Shania Harrison-Lee (SI Junior Captain, SI Women and SI Open) had a stellar weekend.

She top scored in the Inter-Island Junior match (396.24) and again as captain of the NZ Junior team (299).

In the women’s match (397.27) she top scored for the SI Women, and was second top performer in the NZ Women’s match (299), for the Inter-Island Open match (399.27).

She top scored again, to claim the honour of being named the NZ Open Team Captain on Sunday.

Over the course of the weekend, she completed 22 targets and finished with 2184/2200, meaning her average for the weekend was 99.27.

The team are now looking forward to completing their NDC (National District Championship) final against Auckland next week; completing the Candyman Cup match (Top NI Association team vs Top SI Island Association team).

The Ashburton College’s NZ Secondary Schools’ Championship team will consist of members from the Target Shooting Mid Canterbury team as well as others who will travel to Wellington at the end of September, where they will be among the favourites for national secondary honours.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 22 August 2019