Wood County sharpshooter makes it to Shooting Sports National Championships

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP)- Emile Allison, a senior over at Parkersburg South, can be labeled as a competitive sharpshooter for her recent success. Emile’s love for the sport of shooting started when she was just very little.

“The whole starting at a young age helped me out,” Emilee said. “I was shooting at five years old. So, I really got started  early, but I think around the second year of me shooting air rifle is when i really realized when I had potential in it. I actually knew I was going to be pretty decent at it.”

Emile started competing in air rifle in 2019 and recently made all the way to nationals after going through regionals and state. She would place 30th out of 96 competitors in the Shooting Sports National Championships in Grand Island, Nebraska. The team overall were able to place 7th in nationals in the air rifle category.

“I mean I kind of knew what it was going to be like, but also didn’t know what it was going to be like,” Emilee added. “There’s definitely more people, more coaches, more workers, more everything. So, i think going from just like the  county, to the state level, to the national level, it’s a big jump.

Clyde Sponaugle, the head coach of the Wood County Shooting Sports,  said he wanted to teach competitors how to handle the gun, as the more the person practices to get better.

“In shooting sports, we actually want to teach these kids how to handle a rifle and be safe with a rifle,” Clyde said. “The more you are in it, the more you progress. She has progressed quite a bit, and I’m proud of her.”

You can only go to nationals one time for each discipline, but Emilee hopes to return to nationals in a different category of shooting.

Next year, I’m going to try my best to figure out the whole air pistol thing,” Emilee said. ” I’m going to take what I know now, and try to apply it, and make myself good at that too.”

To get involved with shooting sports here in Wood County, Sponaugle said the 4-H club in Mineral Wells meets every third Sunday at 4:00 p.m.

Copyright 2024 WTAP. All rights reserved.