Tornado
shooter is 2nd in state
BUTLER TWP — Shooting a rifle at targets in the backyard is nothing like being
on a high school rifle team.
Just ask Ben Smith.
"Miss a ring by 3 inches in the backyard and you're pretty happy,"
the
Smith didn't make many bad shots for the Golden Tornado this season. In fact,
he finished second in the state meet, marking the best statewide finish of any
Smith earned 396 of 400 possible points recently at the western half of the
state competition at the Frazier Simplex in
The top 13 WPIAL placers competed in the western half. The eastern half
comprised the top 13 shooters on that side of the state.
The Pennsylvania Rifle and Pistol Association runs the state competition.
"Scores from the two meets are turned in and compiled to determine the
state champion,"
Smith's 396 was second in the western half — and overall — to an Avella
shooter, who had a 397.
Smith and teammate Andrew Olexsak, a junior, qualified for the state
competition by finishing ninth and 12th, respectively, at the WPIAL meet.
Olexsak wound up placing ninth in the state.
The state competition lasts about an hour for each shooter. Each participant
takes 40 total shots at four targets, or 10 shots at each. A 20-minute break
occurs after 20 shots.
"It's a sport of mental stamina more than anything else," Beveridge
said. "You need 100 percent focus and concentration on each shot. There
just isn't any margin for error."
Butler placed two shooters in the WPIAL meet in 2007 — Kayla Fry (fifth) and
J.T. Kerr (ninth) — but neither placed in the state competition. The Golden
Tornado had no shooters place in the WPIALs last year.
Smith tried out for the rifle team as a freshman "because I was looking
for something to do." He had friends on the team who talked him into it as
well.
"About half of the kids who try out don't make it," Smith said.
"I was good enough to make the team, but the main shooters we had were
still much better.
"I was very, very ordinary my first three years."
He was extraordinary when he had to be.
"I don't read too much into this accomplishment, to be honest," Smith
said. "In rifle events like this, it's a matter of having a good day or a
bad day."
Also a member of Butler's ultimate frisbee team, a non-WPIAL organization that
was formed last year, Smith ranks seventh in his graduating class of 602 with a
4.4 grade point average.
He is consid
"None of those schools have a rifle team, but I'll join a rifle club if
it's out there," Smith said. "We had a great group of people on our
rifle team. That's the main reason I stuck with it."