Roman Tavares-Finson at age 13 became the youngest winner of the Digicel Cup Inter Schools Sporting Clays Challenge recently at the Jamaica Skeet Club in Portmore.

Tavares-Finson came out ahead of the 75 shooters when he shot 49 birds out of 50 in the main section then he out-shot the top eight shooters in the Super Six shoot-off. He topped the shooters bagging 15 of 18 birds.

Tavares-Finson ended the tournament with a score of 64 out of a possible 68, six more than his nearest challengers in Zachary Chen and Danzel Knight, who both ended on 58 each and had to be separated after a further shoot-off to decide the second and third place positions.

Tavares-Finson was very pleased with his performance. He said that “it was a very challenging course and I felt as if I had thought more about it in my head I would not have done so well, so I just blanked my mind and did what I did. I got all of it from my coach Khaleel Azan, without him I could not have done this. I think it is all mental game, people can be amazing shooters but just don’t have good mental thoughts so they can’t do it.”

He went on further to say that he thinks that he can defend his championship in the future.

The other category winners included: Jnr A – Danzel Knight 45; Jnr B – Zack Lazarus 42; Jnr C – Adam Fletcher 39; Jnr D – Darren Gordon 44; Girls A – Isabelle Chin 39; Girls B – Savannah Miller 45; Girls C – Abbey McMaster 41; Sub Jnr A – Roman Tavars-Finson 49; Sub Jnr B – Nicholai Azan 41; Sub Jnr C – Jonathan Ralston 49, and Sub Jnr D – Jordan Vaz 47.

The fourth Digicel Cup Inter Schools Sporting Clays sported its largest field with 75 shooters drawn from nine schools. That aspect of the competition went to the perennial winner Hillel with 215 points. AISK were a close runner-up with 208 points. Campion with 204 bagged third place and Jamaica College with 172 ended in fourth position. The scores of the top five shooters from each school contributed to the overall school score. Some of the other competing schools included Wolmer’s and Sts Peter & Paul Prep.

The beginners or youngest shooters starting from age nine, took to the 14-station course at nine o’clock in the morning before the official opening ceremony which included a schools parade. This year had the largest number of female shooters – 12.

According to Khaleel Azan, president of the Jamaica Skeet Club, “every year I don’t think that we can get any better and we do get better. For a 13-year-old to shoot 49 out of 50 on this course is really a great achievement. Roman Tavares-Finson shot 49 and this gives me an idea of where we are and we are really achieving a lot from year to year. The other thing that really pleases me is that this year we had 12 female shooters. The girls are doing well.” He singled out Savannah Miller for special mention. She shot 45 in the main tournament.

Azan also said that the Jamaica Skeet Club was looking forward to new school year or the year after, as there is a move to run the schools competition under the ISSA banner and open it up to all schools.

Wayne Brown of title sponsor Digicel presented several prizes of phone credit for all winners and I-pads for the top boy and girl. He said the Digicel was pleased with their sponsorship of the tournament and looked forward to its continued sponsorship.

The sponsors were Digicel, Wata, Reggae Jammins, Best Dressed Chicken, True Juice, Hawkeye, St Mary’s Banana, Bigga, Tin Grinners Club Jamaica and Arts & Photo Impressions.