2006 Illinois Service Rifle Championship

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Saturday's individual was blessed with clear blue skies, plenty of sunshine, and moderate temperatures. 45 competitors took to the firing line to see who the 2006 Illinois state service rifle champion would be. This included past champions as well as up and coming contenders.

In standing, 2005 service rifle champion Konrad Powers jumped out to a slim 1 point lead over Iowa National Guard shooter Lee Wells. A further 1 point back were John Holliger and Bill Guess. Jay Krebs shot a 190 to lead the Master class while another Iowan, Ryan Kuhn, topped the Experts with his 189 and Scott Dzekute led the Sharpshooters.

During sitting rapid-fire both Powers and Holliger cleaned their first strings but John only dropped one on the second string to Konrad's two. That still kept Powers in the lead over Holliger but only by one point. National Guard shooter Larry Walraven's 200-10x propelled him to third overall, down two points from John. Bill Guess was four points off the lead while Wells and Illinois State Police Officer Joe Julian were both within one point of Bill. Expert shooter and junior Keatin Martin kept the High Masters honest by being only 10 points down from the leader while Jay Krebs was still leading Masters.

300 rapid shuffled things around a bit. Holliger's 198 to Powers' 196 swapped their positions at the top of the leaderboard. John now led Konrad by 1 point going back to 600. Larry Walraven was tied with Konrad while Bill Guess kept close three points behind them. Keatin was still only 10 points behind, Jay led the other Masters by two points, and junior Lindsey Mazurski was showing the way in the Sharpshooter class.

Things would be decided at the 600 yard line. With Holliger and Powers both shooting rifles built by White Oak Precision shooter skill would determine the winner. With neither shooter scoring many x's at 600 it would be the nines that made the difference. Even though both were piling on the 10's, as soon as one would shoot a nine the other would as well. Konrad finished first and had to endure an agonizing wait to see if John would drop more than five 9's. A 194 for John would give both shooters the same score and x-count. At that point tie breaking rules revert to the score fired at the longest distance which would give Powers the win. But Holliger kept his cool and only dropped five at 600 to keep him one point clear of Konrad for the aggregate.

The winning margin was the closest for this championship in recent memory and gave John Holliger his sixth state Service Rifle Championship. Larry Walraven came in third with Joe Julian and Bill Guess rounding out the top five. Jay Krebs topped the Masters while Wisconsin resident Warren Brown led the Experts. Despite some problems at 600 yards, Lindsey Mazurski came out ahead of the Sharpshooters.

The Sherwood "Woody" Coul trophy was sponsored by two-time Service Rifle champion Bob Lundgren. Bob shot in today's match and made the trophy presentation to John.

The match director would like to thank the numerous people that helped throughout the weekend. The matches would not have gone as smoothly without your help.