Taking first place in 10 out of the 11 possible events, NJROTC won first overall at the national qualifying competition in Oklahoma City on Saturday Jan. 23.

Of the 5,500 possible points in the competition, NJROTC received 5,497 of them, beating out the runner up by 720 points.

“Every year Oklahoma is one of the toughest competitions physically due to the hard judging, but this time it felt like no competition at all,” Top five winner for sit-ups and push-ups Caleb Coleman said. “I would say it’s because of everyone’s hard work and effort.”

The team placed first in events such as Academics, Color Guard, Armed Regulation and Exhibition Drills, Unarmed Regulation and Exhibition Drills, and many others, all of which helped to raise their record for the season to 48-3.

“We practice over Christmas Break, Martin Luther King Day, and on teacher work days,” ROTC member Ena Shartzer said. “For Athletics, we train from 6:00 a.m. to 7:20 a.m. Drill is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same time and then on Fridays we split the practice. That’s just normal, we are always focusing on the next competition.”

Other than the major group events, there were also North students who made it into the top five for individual Academics and individual Male push-ups and sit-ups.

“What a typical practice would look like is static stretching, dynamic stretching, daily seven, sit ups three sets of three, two and one minutes, twenty push ups regular grip, fifteen wide, and ten diamond, leg lifts, flutter kicks and two sets of bicycles, and then we do dips. Don’t forget running for ten plus minutes,” Coleman said. “When you think about it, yeah it is a lot, but it’s just another day’s work with just a little improvement each time.”

Overall North’s NJROTC dominated in the Oklahoma competition and brought home nine new trophies to add to the hundreds upon hundreds of trophies that line their classrooms and hallways already.

“Our goal is first place at Navy Nationals. Oklahoma is the qualifier, Lubbock is the regional competition and that is the one that gets us to Pensacola, Florida where we will compete in the Navy National Competition,” Shartzer said. “I am insanely proud. We are working so hard to achieve our goal and though we still have a lot of work to do I know we can make it a reality.”