Christian Sasso and Wendy McMaster were crowned national shotgun champion and national shotgun ladies’ champion, respectively, last Thursday at the Jamaica Skeet Club’s awards function at the Serengeti Restaurant at Hope Zoo.

The two top gunners for 2019 had to do well in four gruelling sporting clay disciplines over several months in order bag the championships. The four disciplines are Fitasc, 5 Stand, Super Sporting, and Sporting Clays. The final of the four (200-Bird Sporting Clays) was held last recently at the Tru-Juice Estates in St Catherine, where both Sasso and McMaster were highest overall champion and ladies champion, respectively. Ray McMaster was the runner-up to Sasso. He bagged the Hugh Croskery Cup.

Christian Sasso, back-to-back national shotgun champion having won in 2018 and 2019, was celebrating his third hold on the JC Thwaites crystal as national shotgun champion.

Sasso was very happy with the win. “It feels really good. It feels good to win back-to-back championships. It’s a lot of time and a lot of effort that go in the national shotgun championship, so it does feel really good.”

Sasso now looks forward the Pan Am Games, where he and six-time national shotgun champion Shaun Barnes will represent Jamaica in Olympic Skeet between July 26 and August 11 in Lima, Peru.

McMaster was pleased to be crowned the four-time national shotgun ladies champion, having first won it in 2015.

“It feels very extraordinary and very good. I am very happy and very proud to be in this position the fourth time — national female champion.” McMaster feels that she can defend her championship in the coming year. “I think I can. I feel confident that I am shooting well. I am improving, and that’s what is the real aim of the game, to improve each year, and I really feel I am gonna do well next year.”

Several other shooters were celebrated on the night.

David Wong had a number of notable performances during the year and was crowned the national sub junior shotgun champion as well as the C Class champion for which he got the Khaleel Azan Cup.

Roman Tavares-Finson, who at 14 years of age became the youngest junior to make it to A Class (the highest shooting class), pocketed the Khaleel Azan Trophy.

Gregory East was the best in the Hunters or beginners shooting category. He will move up to E Class for the upcoming season.

Justin Samuda won the E Class and the Tony Kelly Cup. Tony Kelly is one of the founders of the Jamaica Skeet Club.

Young shooter J J Ralston mastered the D Class and copped the Errol Ziadie Cup.

Cameron Phang Sang was the B Class champion, who took home the Peter McConnell Cup.

A Class champion and winner of the Best Dressed Cup was Bruce duQuesnay.

A number of juniors who performed well during the season were class winners, including Roman Tavares Finson, Cameron Phang Sang, J J Ralston, and David Wong. Their performances were highlighted by President Jordan Samuda. He also made special mention of Danzell Knight, who started a charity for the Jamaica Society for the Blind last year and presented a cheque to them in the amount of $752,000, while this year over $1.3 million was presented to the society.

Samuda also announced that the junior programmes will be branded with the name Jamaica Junior Hot Shot Future Masters. Additionally, he announced a seven-member junior team of Roman Tavares-Finson, Cameron Phang Sang, Matthew Josephs, Mark Desnoes, Ryan Lue, David Wong, and the lone female Savannah Miller.