{"id":8582,"date":"2011-02-18T11:08:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T17:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/?p=8582"},"modified":"2011-02-18T11:12:23","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T17:12:23","slug":"the-tale-of-two-sarahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/the-tale-of-two-sarahs\/8582\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tale of Two Sarahs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Sarah Irish has to concentrate. Focus on standing still. Shooting slow while controlling her breathing, her sights and of course her trigger.<\/p>\n

All this while facing off against the famed University of Alaska-Fairbanks on their home range.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old freshman is a new member of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology<\/a> NCAA Rifle Team. And in NCAA rifle competition control is everything \u2013 especially going up against the fifth ranked team in the nation.<\/p>\n

But while Sarah may be new to NCAA smallbore (and air rifle), the pressure of competition is nothing new to her. You see, Sarah\u2019s kinda like Superman with a dual, secret identity.<\/p>\n

At school she\u2019s a normal coed, surrounded by students her own age, living in the dorms, balancing a collegiate social life against the rigors of a chemical engineering major.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But, outside of school on ranges across the country, she dons her other competition gear, her lightweight shooting shirt, her custom-built, high-speed blaster, and miraculously she turns into Sarah Irish top-ranked women\u2019s Master in USPSA\u2019s practical shooting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In USPSA competition speed, blazing speed, is a must.\u00a0\u00a0 The guns are much smaller, the targets are much bigger, and they\u2019re numerous. Then there\u2019s the veritable who\u2019s who of the world\u2019s best women shooters all trying to out shoot Sarah on each and every pull of the trigger.<\/p>\n

And here, up against the best, Sarah holds her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah is one of our youngest Master level shooters, and getting to that level is no easy feat. She\u2019s proved herself to be a very strong competitor who belongs among the top tier of USPSA\u2019s women shooters. I have no doubt that someday soon we won\u2019t be talking about her being a Master, but a National Champion instead,\u201d said Michael Voigt, USPSA president.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So how did the run-and-gun Sarah end up standing still with a rifle in her hands and calm in her mind and body?<\/p>\n

\u201cI had heard about the team from a current student the summer before I moved to Rose-Hulman,\u201d explained Irish. \u201cI thought it would be an interesting experience, and I definitely want to try different types of shooting sports!\u201d<\/p>\n

Her appearance at the team\u2019s open tryouts was a welcome sight for coach Jason LaBella who is used to having students show up who have never shot competitively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I knew about her and her ability was during the first round of our open tryouts. I was excited because I like to have shooters on my team who are well rounded and have competition experience in a sport. Since hers was in a shooting sport, I was even more pleased,\u201d said LaBella.<\/p>\n

Sarah\u2019s shooting skills were immediately evident to the coach, including her ability to learn how to perform a shooting skill. LaBella called it \u201cvery strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also brought the one skill every top USPSA shooter needs in their bag, the ability to call your shots.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI have been able to use my shot calling abilities from USPSA in rifle competition. When the 10-ring is a tiny dot, knowing you\u2019ve called a good shot is extremely important,\u201d said Irish.<\/p>\n

Of course coming from the high-speed world of USPSA also presented problems. The phrase \u201cspeed kills\u201d was never truer than when in reference to smallbore competition.<\/p>\n

LaBella admits that for Sarah the main problem is \u201cthe speed at which she shoots, and attention to events around the trigger execution such as follow through and clean trigger pull.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recognizes the transition can be tough noting that \u201cwhen you go from shooting a plate to shooting a pinhead, every little flinch and imperfection is exposed.\u201d But he also sees it as a valuable lesson that will help her shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I suspect that this will make her an even stronger pistol shooter,\u201d observed LaBella. \u201cThe pistol world can accept my apologies now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah agrees. \u201cIn USPSA competition, I have a tendency to shoot faster than I should. I\u2019m hoping to use rifle shooting to help me slow down for a fraction of a second in USPSA to make sure I\u2019m calling a good shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another major difference between the world of USPSA competition and NCAA Rifle is Sarah\u2019s relationship to each group. In USPSA she\u2019s often competing with women who are sometimes twice her age, or more. And at Rose-Hulman they are essentially the same age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a different experience being the same age as the rest of the competitors,\u201d explains Irish. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to see the different skill levels that people in the same age group have. At USPSA competitions, I get a lot of attention for being a young female. However, in NCAA rifle, it\u2019s quite common.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is uncommon though about her presence in NCAA shooting is that she\u2019s likely the only member with YouTube videos<\/a> posted of her in shooting competitions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Despite downplaying her national ranking in practical shooting, much like Clark Kent hiding his secret identity, Sarah could not escape detection when she had to explain her absence from school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI explained my involvement in USPSA early on in the season because I had to miss a few days of rifle practice to go to (USPSA) Nationals. I have showed them several videos of myself and others shooting and they were quite interested in it,\u201d said Sarah.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy teammates think USPSA shooting is awesome! I think several of them want to try pistol shooting and I\u2019ll more than likely take them to a few local matches in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach LaBella, the rifle world can accept USPSA\u2019s apologies now.<\/p>\n

This story first appeared on the Women of USPSA blog<\/a>. DRTV wishes to thank Women of USPSA for allow us to share Sarah’s story.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18-year-old college freshman Sarah Irish easily travels between the two worlds of high speed run-and-gun practical shooting and the ultra-precise, hyper-accurate NCAA rifle. And she’s making a name for herself in each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,9,6],"tags":[964,1501,1500,711,3597],"class_list":["post-8582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bloggers","category-paul-erhardt","category-uspsa","tag-michael-voigt","tag-ncaa-rifle","tag-rose-hulman-institute-of-technology","tag-sarah-irish","tag-uspsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}