Crack shots: All-female UTRGV shooting team makes history

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Three members of the American Criminal Justice Association’s Iota Kappa Chi chapter, based at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Brownsville campus, made history recently thanks to their superior pistol skills.

Christina Hernandez, Kayla Navarro and Brianna Rodriguez, all UTRGV criminal justice students from Cameron County, were the first all-female team in the 88-year history of ACJA to win first place in the Upper Division of Team Shooting at an ACJA shooting competition, held as part of the organization’s national conference in Long Beach, California, March 30-April 4.

ACJA-Lamda Alpha Epsilon is a national student organization dedicated to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a degree in criminal justice.

In fact, no all-female team has ever taken first place in any division in any year of the competition, according to Michael R. Sanchez, UTRGV Criminal Justice program Lecturer III, firearms instructor and IKC student faculty advisor, who took 10 UTRGV students in all to the conference.

Sanchez, who admitted he’s “beaming over this,” said Hernandez, Navarro and Rodriguez earned a big round of applause when the first place award was announced during the conference’s presentation ceremony.

“All the girls in the room gave them a spontaneous standing ovation,” he said. “That really kind of choked me up. They’re inspiring all these young girls.”

Young women are constantly being told why they can’t pursue law enforcement careers, which makes the example set by the team’s big win in Long Beach all the more meaningful, Sanchez said.

The conference featured training workshops, speakers and subject matter experts, networking and career opportunities, with ACJA members competing against each other in academic testing, crime scene investigation and physical fitness in addition to shooting.

Sanchez, a 35-year law enforcement veteran, who does all the firearms training for the Criminal Justice program, noted that the Iota Kappa Chi chapter virtually “owns” ACJA’s firearms competition.

“Of the top six shooters in the country, four are mine,” he said. “I have a really good training program. Three years ago I had a girls team take second at regional. Actually girls are easier to teach firearms than boys, because you don’t have to get past the male ego. … You don’t have to push through that ego, so the girls are very easy to teach. I’ve got as many excellent shooting girls as I have guys, if not more.”

As for what it takes to take the top prize in such high-level competition, Sanchez said that “it’s being able to do things under stress.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I like the competitions, because knowing you have one shot at this puts stress on them, and their shooting skills go down a little,” he said. “Nobody does as well in competition under stress as they do practicing.

“It kind of teaches them, as I’m always telling them, this is nothing compared to getting shot at. If they understand that stress has an effect on their skill set, if they’re prepared for that, you’ll actually do better under stress. It’s an instructive exercise that way.”

The other students Sanchez took to the conference — Alberto Garay, Denisse Jimenez, Kenny Perez, Brendaly Quinonez, Gabriel Richarte, Jair Tovar and Luis Vasquez — all placed in the shooting competition, he said.

“I took 10 students to national and every single one of them took home a trophy,” Sanchez said. “When you’ve got one good shooter, that’s an anomaly. When you’ve got 10 good shooters, that’s a good program.”

Navarro, the top shooter on the team, said she was taken aback at winning first and feels extremely proud of her teammates, Hernandez and Rodriguez. Asked how it’s possible to perform so well under the intense pressure of a national competition, Navarro pointed to something Sanchez often emphasizes, that shooting — especially expert shooting — is more mental than physical.

“There’s a point where, as you take your stance, you just focus on the target and that’s all you’re focused on,” she said. “Nothing else bothers you.”

Navarro said just about anyone can learn to shoot as long as they’re open to learning and constructive criticism.

“Especially since you’re not always going to be consistent,” she said. “And in that case, also to not get very frustrated with yourself helps a lot, because once you get frustrated you start decreasing in your performance.”

Sanchez pointed to something he said makes him feel especially good about the team’s win: the reaction of his male students. While it’s not uncommon for the males to be jealous when outshone by their female colleagues, that was anything but the case this time, Sanchez said.

“I had other other students tell me that my male students in the organization were out bragging on the girls,” he said. “That’s such a nice thing, you know?”

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