COLLEGE STATION, Texas – -(Ammoland.com)-On Saturday, March 10, 2018 at the CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park in Talladega, AL., the CCMU Centerfire A Team, firing Glock 34’s won the Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) 2018 National Collegiate Championship.
The cadets from Texas A&M have now won this event three years in a row and four of the last five years.
The CCMU Centerfire Alpha team won the event and the National Championship by setting a new sport team record in Centerfire with a time of 165.79 seconds.
The CCMU Centerfire Bravo team finished in 2nd place overall (an SASP team is a four person squad, the team score for the competition is the total time of the four individuals on the squad.) Third place in the match was won by the squad attending from the United States Military Academy at West Point (USMA).
With nineteen universities represented, the 2018 SASP Collegiate National Championship was the largest in the history of the sport.
The cadets of the CCMU nearly swept the centerfire individual awards for the match missing the High Overall Centerfire Shooter by 5/100’s of a second, but taking the remaining four spots in the top five and putting six shooters in the overall Top 10. For the third year in a row, CCMU also won the High Lady in Centerfire.
The top individual Centerfire score was fired by Ryan Flowers of Clemson University with a time of 38.41 seconds, he was followed closely by CCMU Cadet Wade Ledbetter with a time of 38.46 seconds. Cadet Ledbetter is the first CCMU cadet to break the once mythical 40 second mark in Centerfire competition. He was closely followed by CCMU Team Commander Nic Mrak, shooting this match for the final time, with a score of 40.15 seconds.
The High Lady trophy in Centerfire has been awarded to a CCMU female cadet for the third year in a row. For the second year in row it has been won by junior CCMU Cadet Savannah Butters ’19 with a time of 63.31 seconds. Cadet Butters is no stranger to winning at national championship level matches as she was the 2016 High Lady in Rimfire at Nationals, and a year ago she won the High Lady in Centerfire trophy. Notably, Cadet Butters was firing the Walther Q5 Match pistol, a version of Walther’s incredibly popular PPQ series. Walther is a valuable sponsor of the CCMU and their pistols have performed exceptionally well in the hands of male and female CCMU cadets.
The CCMU Rimfire team also finished in 3rd place overall in Rimfire Division.
Although this is a team match, individual scores are recognized and awarded. Six CCMU cadets finished in the Top 10 Overall, including four of the Top 5. Three of the four stages in the match were won by CCMU cadets (fastest individual time on the stage), including the newest stage, called “M”, which was added to the match with only four days notice to teams participating and which the CCMU cadets had never previously fired or practiced.
Stage winners are:
- “M” – Chris Hernandez 10.6 seconds
- ”Go Fast” – Wade Ledbetter 6.34
- ”In and Out” – Nick Mrak 10.09
Individual stats and team times.
-National Champions – CCMU 9mm A 165.79 second (New record)
- Nicholas Mrak ’18 Team Commander 40.15 seconds
- Wade Ledbetter ‘19 38.46
- Kyle Post ’19 42.80
- Seth Clagg ’20 44.38
-Centerfire 2nd Place – CCMU 9mm B 199.24 seconds
- Kit Hoog ’19 42.39 seconds
- Chris Hernandez ’19 46.97
- Jason Sartor ’18 51.80
- Nathan Schwebel ‘19 57.97
-Rimfire 3rd Place – CCMU .22 A214.41 seconds
- Grant Grabowski ’20. 47.83 seconds
- John Gossett ’19 52.58
- Colton Roach ’21 52.35
- Ryan Milligan ’21 61.55
Top 10- Centerfire Overall
- 2. Wade Ledbetter ’19
- 3. Nick Mrak ‘18
- 4. Christopher Hoog ‘19
- 5. Kyle Post ‘19
- 6. Seth Clagg ‘20
- 9. Chris Hernandez ‘19
CCMU Coach Kevin Jimmerson commented, “It is a great honor for me to lead this team as their Coach. I can’t express how proud I am of each of them, and their Team Commander, for the way they have responded to their considerable challenges this year. As two-time defending national champions they were under a lot of pressure to perform at this match. We received four days notice that a brand new stage was being added to the match that we had never practiced, and our training had already been compromised and compressed by having to prepare to defend our three year winning streak shooting 3Gun against the Service Academies and our fellow Senior Military Academies just two weeks from today.”
Coach Jimmerson added, “Our team leadership at all levels has worked very hard to prepare the team for this years matches. The professional leadership skills they learn as cadets in our Corps have never been more evident, and more important, than they have been this year. My cadets are dedicated to each other and to Excellence. They never lose sight of the fact that we win and lose together as a team and they always focus on the serious elements of what we do, while still having fun as we work at it. Our team motto is Omnis Gloria Fluxa. All Glory is Fleeting. It is a reminder to us that we must always work harder no matter our achievements, and a warning to those who get the better of us on any given day that they had better do the same, because we will be back.”
Ed Fitzgerald, SSSF Board Vice-Chairman and Advertising Manager of GLOCK, USA stated: “Title IX sports clubs at the collegiate level allow students the opportunity to continue to enhance their shooting skills while also receiving a life skills education. They allow students who might never have the opportunity to shoot and compete to be part of a safe and fun skill development program that is gender neutral. Glock, USA is proud to be a sponsor of this great sport and we appreciate all the wonderful Colleges and Universities that have endorsed SASP and fielded teams for competition. Texas A&M’s CCMU has again demonstrated its dominance in the sport through a dedicated practice of excellence and we are very proud they use our products to not only be the best, but to train the future officers of our military and the future leaders of our great country.”
The CCMU trains and competes in action shooting sports with other college teams, against active duty military and law enforcement and at 3Gun matches around the country, but it also works to grow participation in the shooting sports at all ages and among both men and women. The CCMU is very grateful to its industry sponsors for their support of this team and its activities both on and off the range. The cadets of the CCMU want to recognize all of the companies large and small who graciously sponsor the team for their continued support and also the team’s primary equipment sponsors that aided in this win: Freedom Munitions, GLOCK, Walther, Kryptek, 5.11, TRUGLO, MagPul, Apex Tactical, Safariland, TSRA Foundation and S3F Solutions for the cutting edge gear and support they provide, and the Texas A&M TEEX and the Willow Hole Cowboys for the use of their range facilities. Please take a moment to visit the Sponsor page on the CCMU web page and thank these businesses for their support of our future officers.
The CCMU was officially formed in December of 2011, but today’s squad represents the latest in over 100 years of history of marksmanship teams competing for the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. The CCMU fields competitors in the action pistol sports, steel pistol sports, 3Gun and international clay sports. Team members are drawn exclusively from the 2,700 men and women of the Corps of Cadets who are all undergraduates at Texas A&M. Scholarships and in-state tuition are also available for CCMU cadets. The cadets of the CCMU are supported and funded through the Office of the Commandant of the Corps of Cadets, and the generous efforts of the Corps of Cadets Association ( https://www.corpsofcadets.org ) a private non-profit group committed to sustaining the 142 year old traditions of the Cadet Corps at Texas A&M. Please contact them to make a tax deductible donation on the teams behalf.
For more information on the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University, visit www.corps.tamu.edu. For information on the Corps of Cadets Marksmanship Unit visit www.cocmu.com or follow the team on Facebook.