Oak Harbor High School’s Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp competitive teams are a perennial regional power, but now the Wildcats are aiming to succeed at the national level.

Oak Harbor will sent its orienteering team to the Navy National Championships Feb. 14-15 in Agua Dulce, Calif., and its rifle team to Western Regional Finals Feb. 20-21 in Phoenix, Ariz.

Orienteering is basically a cross country race with a map and check points.

The course generally covers three to five kilometers, and competitors are given a topographical map to use to find control points.

Oak Harbor senior Caleb Peek said that participants don’t necessarily have to run to win, but going straight, even if walking, is the most efficient.

The Wildcats began competing in orienteering in 2006 and are led this year by first-year coach Marc deLeuze.

Oak Harbor NJROTC instructors, Commander Mike Black and Chief Bill Thiel, brought deLeuze aboard to help revitalize the team.

“Bill and Mike were getting overwhelmed,” deLeuze said, “and were looking to find a different coach or drop the program.”

Twenty years with the Seabees and 10 with Scouts helped deLeuze develop his map and compass skills.

“In the military, you are all stealth and sneaky — you don’t want to get caught,” he said. “This is like a bull running through the woods — ‘I don’t care if you see me, I just want to be first.’ ”

This year’s team has won four of the six Washington Interscholastic Orienteering League matches this season and is led by Peek, who has four individual firsts.

Peek has been so dominant this year, the Cascade Orienteering Club has asked him to represent theorganization at the national interscholastic meet.

Peek, in his second year of orienteering, learned his navigational skills from his grandfather, an Air Force veteran, who taught him how to navigate using the sun and horizon.

Peek said it is a great honor to compete at the Navy national meet and hopes to place in the top 10.

The success of the team, deLeuze said, comes from the competitors: “It’s the men and women who make it strong. I have been lucky enough to be asked to be their coach.”

Joining Peek, the team captain, on this year’s team are TeoFrancis Torres, Jared Alano-Gray, Trevor Feinberg and Joe Gilham.

Torres and Feinburg have two top-10 finishes in WIOL competition this season.

The rifle team has had individuals compete nationally in recent years, but this is the first time the team as a whole has qualified since 2006, according to Black.

In rifle competition, the participants use sporter-class air rifles and shoot 20 shots from three different positions (prone, standing and kneeling) at a target 10 meters away. The goal is to hit the 5mm center dot.

Oak Harbor is coached by Dave Goodman, who shot for the U.S. Navy team for four years.

Goodman, who is in his fourth year as the OHHS head coach, also volunteers with the Snohomish and Marysville-Pilchuck high school teams.

After winning three consecutive regional titles, Goodman said it’s time for Oak Harbor to compete for a national crown.

“There is no value if we show up and crush everyone (in local competition),” Goodman said. “If we are going to get up a 6 a.m. each morning to practice, why not be great, not just good?”

Goodman deflects the success of his team back to the athletes: “The kids are now coaching themselves, which is fantastic. They see the problem, they fix the problem.”

Senior Colton Baumgardner finished 37th and junior Mara Rouse 118th out of 40,000 ROTC shooters last year, Goodman said.

This year the pair wanted the entire team to compete at the national meet.

“We all wanted to qualify together,” Rouse said. “Getting new shooters to nationals was one of our goals.”

Rouse also competes for the West Seattle Totems, a feeder team for U.S.A. Shooting, which forms the Olympic team.

Along with Baumgardner and Rouse, the Wildcats includes Abby Holt, Hailey Hahn and Austin McBride.

“There are no cliches; everyone helps each other out,” Goodman said. “The fact that I get to be part of this blows me away.”

Now the Wildcats aim to blow the national competition away.