Valley Stream rifle team on the mark again

With a team full of newcomers, the Valley Stream Central High School District’s rifle team won its fourth consecutive state championship earlier this month.

A core group of veteran team members graduated last year, leaving a rookie crew to compete in matches this season. They picked up right where their departed teammates left off, capturing state titles in both the air rifle and .22 smallbore competitions.

Leading the way were Central High School sophomores Dean Rossano and Nick Rishkel, South High junior Jumell Wilson and Memorial Junior High ninth-grader Danielle Cuomo. Rishkel was the only one of the four who had been to the state championships before, and then only as an alternate.

To get to the states, Valley Stream had to win at the county level, which it did for the sixth year in a row. The team competes against eight other rifle squads in Nassau during regular-season matches.

Coach Blake McCauley said his team was confident going into the state tournament, held March 6 at the West Point Military Academy. “They were as ready as they were going to be,” McCauley said. “They went undefeated in the regular season.”

In fact, the coach said, over the past six seasons the team has a combined record of 95-3 in air rifle and smallbore matches.

It narrowly defeated Alden High School, from the Buffalo area, in the smallbore competition. Valley Stream’s four shooters scored 1,086 points to Alden’s 1,084. Shooters could score a maximum of 300 points — 100 each while prone, kneeling and standing.

Wilson was the highest scorer from Valley Stream in smallbore with a score of 277, good for fourth overall.

In air rifle, Valley Stream finished with an only slightly more comfortable lead over Alden, 1,106 to 1,098. Wilson again had Valley Stream’s best score, 282, third best of all competitors.

Going into the state match, team members were tallying scores on par with what they put up last year, Rishkel said, “which was state championship material.”

During the competition, he noted, team members paid attention only to their own scores, not to those of other schools. “You don’t want to look at the scoreboard,” Rishkel said. “It will screw you up and make you nervous.”

Rossano, a member of the team for two years, said that the biggest difference at the state level is that electronic targets are used instead of paper. The result of each shot appears on a monitor right away.

Keys to success

Rossano attributes the team’s success to the intense practice schedule. In the two weeks between the county and state championships, the team was practicing in its range in the basement of Memorial Junior High School five days a week. McCauley agreed. “Motivating them isn’t a problem,” he said. “They want to shoot all the time. We actually do have to slow them down occasionally.”

The state championship can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially for those competing for the first time, McCauley said, adding that his students kept their poise throughout the event. “They manage to stay calm regardless of whether it’s a regular-season match, a county match or a state match,” he said. “They don’t get rattled by who’s around them or where they are.”

Wilson said he didn’t know what to expect at his first state match, since many of the competitors were unfamiliar to him. Though he was nervous at first, he said, he calmed himself down by thinking of the event like it was any other match.

This is Wilson’s second year on the high school team. He had never shot a rifle before, but thought that competitive shooting sounded interesting. “I found out I was naturally good at it,” he said, “so I stayed with it.”

Several team members have competed in the Police Activities League since seventh grade. Among them are North High sophomore Eric Riker, an alternate at the states this year along with Tiffany Pesante. Riker is following in the footsteps of his brother, Walter, who shot for the high school team before graduating last year.

The 14-year-old Cuomo’s mother, Joanne, was once a member of the team. Because Joanne never made it to states, she accompanied the squad to West Point this year.

Cuomo was one of the biggest surprises this year, McCauley said, because few shooters her age compete in matches for the team, let alone make it to the state meet. “It’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment for a ninth-grader,” he said.

At West Point, Cuomo said, she didn’t let nerves get to her. “I just did my best and I had fun with it,” she said. “I had a great time.”

Joe Fitzgibbon, an assistant coach of the Valley Stream PAL team who has watched many of the team members progress, noted that rifle is one of the few sports in which men and women compete as equals. Matches are not broken down by gender.

Fitzgibbon added that rifle competition demands dedication. “It’s not a very natural sport where you can go out there and shoot,” he said. “It takes a lot of practice. There’s a very steep learning curve.”

Asked why the team continues to be successful even after a year of heavy turnover, Rishkel pointed to the leadership of McCauley, assistant Dennis Jording, Fitzgibbon and others. “Our coaches are a major part of it,” Rishkel said.

Nick Novello, a 2008 graduate and two-time state rifle champion, is proud of his former team’s accomplishment. He also cited the coaching as a major reason for continued success. “It’s great to see that the team is still able to pull out impressive wins,” Novello said. “It just goes to show you the great coaching of Blake [McCauley]. He devotes himself to the team and does a fantastic job with them. I hope that this streak continues because with the amount of time that Blake puts in, he deserves it.”

Rishkel, a co-captain along with Wilson and Rossano, said the team’s goal is to capture its fifth straight state championship next year. With almost every team member returning in 2010-11, he said, they should only improve. “We only have one person graduating,” Rishkel said, “so it’s not going to be a new team all over again.”