The victorious target rifle shooting team with the Ashburton Shield and other trophies won at the NRA's 150th Anniversary Schools Meeting

Thrilling win for target rifle team at Bisley

The College target rifle team finished the term in style last week by winning the prestigious Ashburton Shield at the National Rifle Association's 150^th Anniversary Schools Meeting at Bisley.

This was the 14th time overall and 13th time in the past 21 years that Epsom has won the blue riband event of the school target rifle shooting calendar, beating Charterhouse's record for the highest number of Ashburton wins by a single school.

This year's competition was a close run thing, with holders Gresham's School pushing the College VIII of Samir Amin, Alex Dowle, William Broad, Jack Ball, Alex Brunton-Reid, Alastair Mazumdar, Jen Lewsey and Jamie Gibbons all the way.

Under Clare Huxter in her second year in charge, Epsom started strongly, winning the 300x and 600x distances, and despite faltering at 500 yards, the team held their nerve to win by a single point with an aggregate score of 763.42 points. Gresham's finished second with 762.40 points and Cheltenham came third with 753.39.

In addition to winning the Ashburton Shield and eight NRA silver medals, Clare Huxter became the first lady to win the Allhallows Salver as "Master" in charge of the winning school.

There were many outstanding individual performances from the entire squad throughout the meeting. Alex Dowle won the Monday Aggregate and was third in both the Tuesday and the Wednesday Aggregates, as well as second in the School's Hundred and 500x Aggregate. William Broad won the overall 600x Victoria competition, as well as the 600x Aggregate and Cadet Rifle Aggregate. 

The College also came third in the Schools' Fours with 335.9 points and third in the Reserve Man, with Henry Awin scoring 43.1 points, just 0.1 behind the winner.