Volume 125 >> Issue 56 : Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Pistol Team Narrowly Defeats Army, Continuing Undefeated Home Record

By Daipan Lee  and YunJa Chen
TEAM MEMBERS

The MIT pistol team defeated Army in a close series of matches Friday and Saturday to remain undefeated at home for the season.

Both teams shot well, posting high scores in all of the events, but in the end MIT won both the Women’s and Open events, sealing a 6322-6216 win in the aggregate.

The first event shot Friday evening was air pistol, where shooters have one hour and 45 minutes to shoot 60 record shots at 10 meters for the Open event, or one hour and 15 minutes to shoot 40 record shots for the Women’s event.

Behind strong performances by Daipan Lee ’07, Raja Palaniappan ’07, and All-Americans Walter C. Lin ’06, and Diana Nee ’07, MIT took the Open event, 2189-2153. Nee led all women’s shooters in the air event, and combined with Christine L. Nee ’07, YunJa Chen ’07, and Tiffany L. Seto ’06, to win the Women’s air event for MIT, 1086-1037.

Saturday’s matches began with free pistol, a two hour event where 60 shots of .22 caliber pistols are fired at targets placed at fifty feet. For MIT, the team of Lee, Lin, Palaniappan, and Samuel K. Lee ’07 turned in another strong performance, winning the event by a score of 2007-1973.

D. Lee, in his last match as a junior competitor, shot a 535 to set a new Institute record.

In standard pistol, where shooters fire a total of 60 shots with a .22 caliber gun, divided into four five-shot strings at each of three time intervals (2.5 minutes, 20 seconds, 10 seconds), MIT was again victorious. Behind a personal best performance by Diana Nee, the team of Nee, Lin, D. Lee, and Seto took the event, 2126-2090.

The final match of the day was the Women’s sport pistol match. In this .22 caliber event, six five-shot strings are fired in five minute time windows, and another six five-shot strings are fired in rapid sequence. Shooters hold their guns at 45 degree angles for seven seconds between shots, and then have three seconds to lift and fire on target. All four shooters from MIT, D. Nee, Seto, C. Nee, and Chen, recorded personal best scores, and team won the event, 1667-1591.