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One air rifle team in the North Country is reloading, training inside their own middle school cafeteria for another season. Northeastern Clinton Central (NCCS) varsity air rifle is back for its fourth season and looking to add its third straight sectional championship banner. Its been very thrilling, said NCCS varsity air rifle head coach Peter Visconti. Weve been lucky weve had a lot of talented athletes come through the program. The kids are all fantastic to work with; they work hard, they listen. With those sectional championship wins competing in the Adirondack League, the Cougars have performed admirably in the New York state championships, finishing third as a team in the 2022-23 season, and then second in the 2023-24 season. Viscontis daughter Holly won the individual New York state title with NCCS in the 2023-24 season as well, earning her the opportunity to join her sister Amy to compete for the University of Texas at El Pasos (UTEP) NCAA Division I air rifle team. Cassidy Derosia, NCCS senior captain this season, was a part of all three of her schools air rifle teams since they started in 2021. She says that their quick and rapid success is quite the feat considering the size of their school in comparison to others at state championship events. It means a lot to me, Derosia said. We are going up against bigger schools and schools that have been shooting for a while It shows that smaller schools just getting new things are capable of competing with larger schools. Derosia is the only senior on NCCS air rifle team this season but includes plenty of young talent leading to 16 total athletes on the roster. That includes NCCS eighth grader Aidan Johnson, who started competing with his schools air rifle team last year when he was in seventh grade. His development through the program at a young age is something he credits Visconti and the coaching staff for helping him improve. It means a lot how far Ive come, Johnson said. I think coach definitely has a really big part in helping us. His wife (Karen) the other coach, have also really helped me and everyone. NCCS also has received equipment donations from the Ridge Runners, Whitetails Unlimited and the National Rifle Association to be able to compete and practice at a high level. Those tools include the air rifles themselves, alongside paper target sheets and spotting scopes to help the coaches give necessary critiques to ensure their students hit the bullseye. As a coach, you are looking through the spotting scope so you can zoom in on that target and make sight adjustments, Visconti said. Telling the kids what they need to do to shoot towards the center. This will be Peter and Karens last year coaching the Cougars this season, but Peter said he believes the program will still be in great hands based on all the returners expected to come back to the team in the future. I feel really confident, he said. We have everything we need, and fortunately, we only have one senior this year potentially we have 15 students coming back that already know how to shoot, so that will make it easy for an incoming coach to come in and take on the program from there. Right now, Viscontis focus is to get NCCS back to another state championship appearance. Their first game of the Adirondack League regular season is against in a virtual match. The two teams will record their shots and tally their own scores, without having to be in the same shooting range as each other. We shoot our scores here, another school will be shooting at their range at the same time, and then we can compare scores afterwards, Visconti said. It saves on money and transportation because all the matches are at home.NCCS will face Cambridge High School in that first game on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 4:30 p.m.