Francis Marion Memorial Swamp Fox Assault XXXIV

July 26th, 2014

It finally happened... A gun other than a pump Remington or Mossberg has won the Swamp Fox. Congrats to relative newcomer (and a huge contributor to the program), Andrew Miller. Shooting a Benelli M4, he smoked through three of the stages, and turned in a respectable score on the fourth, to get the highest overall score, and first place in the Stock Riot Gun division. (I cringe at the thought of next year's swamp stage, which will likely have shooters belly crawling through a 100 yards of mud to keep an autoloader from winning again...)

Nathan Wilson turned in an INCREDIBLE 80.08 second time in the swamp, to take top honors in the Swamp Fox Shotgun division. Kudos also go to Nathan and Jason Henthorne for integrating an optional zipline into the swamp stage, without a single dislocated shoulder or broken limb.

A couple other interesting points... Jarrod Wenger has returned in fine style, after a couple decades living in places that don't have enough water to make a puddle, let alone a swamp. His first year competing in the Francis Marion was 1985, as a 14 year old! Also of note, Gino Lavalle continues to amaze us. Just a few years ago, he was a little kid whose shoulders barely cleared the deepest water hazards. Now he's in the top third of our shooters.

As always, thanks to the merry band of fools that help us out every year, setting up, running the match, cleaning up, feeding us, and probably most of all, putting up with the surly match director.

Note: The scores have been normalized, so that each stage is given an equal weight, maximum point value of 100 points. The best competitor's score in each stage gets 100 points, with all of the other competitors scores getting a percentage of 100 points. The competitors' were then segregated by division, and their normalized scores for each stage, added up for ranking.

Scores

Name	Division	Stage One Raw:	Stage One Normalized	Stage Two Raw	Stage Two Normalized	Stage Three Raw	Stage Three Normalized	Stage Four Raw	Stage Four Normalized	Total Normalized
Andrew “FNG” Miller	SRG	106.32	75.32	82.93	100.00	91.42	99.72	130.28	97.44	372.47
Tom “The Friendly JBT” Kohl	SRG	93.81	85.36	104.05	79.70	91.60	99.52	155.23	81.78	346.36
Han “Back to the Swamp” Sim	SRG	131.78	60.77	98.51	84.18	96.93	94.05	126.94	100.00	339.00
Danny “The Man” Tan	SRG	101.86	78.62	104.51	79.35	92.98	98.04	158.74	79.97	335.98
Gino “Future Swamp Lord” Lavalle	SRG	128.74	62.20	96.52	85.92	105.43	86.46	170.38	74.50	309.09
Jarrod “All Grown Up” Wenger	SRG	147.98	54.12	127.59	65.00	133.49	68.29	165.83	76.55	263.95
Rob Strodtbeck	SRG	150.99	53.04	136.46	60.77	137.44	66.33	152.03	83.50	263.63
Jon Butts	SRG	163.98	48.84	201.05	41.25	174.68	52.19	231.32	54.88	197.15
Jen “Swamp Queen” Thomas	SRG	164.52	48.67	147.89	56.08	218.26	41.77	260.35	48.76	195.27
Jason Mather	SRG	182.96	43.77	225.5	36.78	217.80	41.85	256.25	49.54	171.94
Doug “Stogie” Rogers	SRG	0		204.31	40.59	141.17	64.57	146.00	86.95	DNF
Matt Franklin	SRG	0		194.48	42.64	172.46	52.86	240.63	52.75	DNF
Fred Phillips	SRG	0		0		167.50	54.42	263.27	48.22	DNF
Nathan “The Adult” Wilson	SFS	80.08	100.00	109.93	75.44	91.16	100.00	145.11	87.48	362.92
Jason “Zipline, Finally!” Henthorne	SFS	94.92	84.37	99.75	83.14	96.78	94.19	140.31	90.47	352.17
Tony “The Mechanic” Lavalle	SFS	111.65	71.72	93.68	88.52	130.81	69.69	129.84	97.77	327.70
Roy “Highpower Nerd” Mitchell	SFS	108.55	73.77	93.03	89.14	123.48	73.83	161.71	78.50	315.24
Mike “Ole Swamp Hoss” McGreer	SFS	116	69.03	109.57	75.69	110.16	82.75	167.24	75.90	303.38
Dave “Buckshot Magnet” Clute	SFS	132.37	60.50	165.15	50.21	102.00	89.37	160.61	79.04	279.12
Kent Peters	SFS	250.1	32.02	204.7	40.51	244.30	37.31	326.24	38.91	148.76
Fred “Methuselahs' Uncle” Fuscoe	SFS	0		0		177.05	51.49	295.72	42.93	DNF
Mark Mitchell	ETS	225.6	35.50	235.8	35.17	165.73	55.01	270.86	46.87	172.54