Story by: C/SGT Erika Foster
Photos by: Shannon DuPlessis
East Surry Places Second in Northwest Region Best of the Best Raider Qualifying
On October 7th, the East Surry High School Army JROTC from 4th Brigade hosted the Northwest Region Best of the Best Raider Qualifying Competition. The competition was held at East Surry High School and the Armfield Civic and Rec Center. Fourteen schools were competing with five events to participate in. The Raider’s day started at 05:00 A.m. with warming up and planning their strategy. Then at 06:30, the team captains had to go sign in and get a folder with wristbands, scoresheets, a map of the area, and East Surry Raider ribbons. At 07:30, there was a commanders meeting that was briefed by Colonel(R) Sentell on the events in the meeting and where the Raiders were supposed to go after the briefing. The commanders’ meeting was concise, and once it was finished all team captains followed First Sergeant(R) Montgomery to the 5k course and were told their order to line up. The 5k started at 08:00 and spanned nearly an hour. After the event Cadet Joe Boggs felt that “considering that 5k we just did, I think we will do really good. I know for a fact this team that I have here is very good for logistics so I think we could even get first there. For the Litter Carry, we practiced that a lot because it’s a lot more technical this year, so I think we could do good definitely compared to other teams and the rope bridge could be worse but I feel like we could still get top four.” Cadet Boggs was feeling pretty “good” but was being realistic. He also said that Reagan HS and Olympic HS were his main concerns. The rest of the Raider competition was free flowing so the East Surry Raiders A Team went to the Logistics Relay first. There they estimated their time would be 1:40 but ended with a 1:37. The Raiders were feeling confident and Cadet Michael Youngblood said this was his favorite event. The Logistics Relay is an event where the raiders are paired up and run timed relay obstacles. After that, they went to the Team Physical Fitness Event which is similar to an obstacle course. Their estimated time was 2:50 and they received 3:49. This was a little difficult for the Raiders because the rain from the night before made the six-foot wall and the balance beam slippery. Next, they went to the rope bridge which they had practiced almost every day and was a very technical event. This event is Cadet Owen Hughes’ favorite because of its technicality. They estimated their time would be two minutes and received 2:00:25. The A Team Raiders were pessimistic but did excellent. Lastly, was the litter carry where the Raider ran with a medic litter that had a hundred-pound bag on it. They estimated their time would be 1:50 and received 1:59. After that they had to wait for the awards ceremony. The awards were given based on first through third for each event and overall. The Raiders received first on litter carry and first on rope bridge. Then overall, Reagan placed third, East Surry placed second, and Butler for first. At the end of the day, the Raider were ecstatic with the outcome and Colonel(R) Sentell was pleased.