From left to right, Patch's Caelyn Miller, Maggie Ehman and Ben Ferguson prepare to shoot in the bonus round as the top three finishers in the European championships last year. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
From left to right, Patch's Caelyn Miller, Maggie Ehman and Ben Ferguson prepare to shoot in the bonus round as the top three finishers in the European championships last year. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
Patch's Caelyn Miller smiles during the DODDS-Europe Marksmanship Championship Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014 at Wiesbaden, Germany. Miller took the title with a final score of 288. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
Recent seasons of DODDS-Europe marksmanship have been marked by parity and unpredictability. Patch, Vilseck and Hohenfels have earned team championships in the last four seasons, and a different individual champion has been crowned every year over the last decade.
But this year might be different. As the 2014-15 season approaches, the Patch Panthers are prohibitive favorites to win their second straight title.
Patch, which won DODDS-Europe team championships in 2014, 2012, 2010 and 2009, has all the elements of another championship team in place. As the program begins to further separate itself from DODDS-Europe competition, the Panthers enter the season with a simple objective, head coach Raul Pinon said: to “sustain our strengths.”
And Patch has plenty of strengths.
The Panthers have top-level talent. Reigning individual champion Caelyn Miller is back for her senior season and the chance to become a rare two-time winner.
Fellow Patch senior Maggie Ehmann, who matched Miller’s season-high score of 290 last Dec. 7 and went on to finish second at the European championship, returns with her.
The Panthers have experienced senior leadership. In addition to Miller and Ehmann, seniors Kaitlin Brooks and Robbie Petersen are on hand to guide the program’s less-experienced marksmen.
Finally, the Panthers have unparalleled depth. Pinon carries 13 shooters on the varsity squad and another 16 in sporter class, the sport’s de facto junior-varsity program.
So can anybody prevent another Panther coronation?
Recent champions Hohenfels and Vilseck seem the most likely candidates. Hohenfels has four returnees on its seven-person roster, including one of last season’s top-five shooters in Katherine Gamble. Vilseck boasts fast-rising sophomore Victoria Banister, returning senior captain Taylor Tucker and senior transfer Sabrina Calor, who made the regional move to Vilseck after her Bamberg team and school closed last summer.
Though Bamberg dropped out of the marksmanship ranks, the sport is growing in DODDS-Europe. Naples and Kaiserslautern are new additions to the field, joining returning programs Alconbury, Ansbach, Baumholder, Vicenza and Wiesbaden in hopes of cracking the organization’s upper tier of programs. Kaiserslautern coach Robert Meyer said his team, which includes just two experienced shooters on the nine-person roster, will be happy just to “get on the board” this year and launch the program toward future contention.
They’ll get their chance starting this week. The five-meet regular season opens Saturday with meets at Vicenza, Baumholder and Hohenfels and continues Dec. 13 before breaking for the holidays. The schedule resumes and concludes in January, with three straight Saturdays of regular-season competition starting Jan. 10 followed by the championship at Patch on Jan. 31.
Twitter: @broomestripes
