Home is where the hardware is for the Oak Harbor High School Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps drill team.

Wildcat Battalion hosted the final regular season meet for the seven schools in the Olympic Division Saturday, Feb. 24, and collected nine first places.

The strong performance also helped nine of its teams qualify for the regional meet March 17 at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

Teams had to finish in the top three in the division based upon points accumulated through the regular season to earn a berth at the regional finals.

Heading to the regional for Oak Harbor are color guard No. 2, the unarmed drill team, the armed drill team, physical strength No. 1, the sporter air rifle team, the precision air rifle team, both dual armed exhibition drill teams and the dual unarmed exhibition drill duo of Kanoa King and Manik Bains.

“After starting out in December,” Chief William Thiel said, “the cadets have been working hard on perfecting their movements to ensure they qualify to attend the regional meet.”

The regional meet will feature 32 schools ranging from Oak Harbor in the north to Gresham, Ore., in the south. Those schools come from four divisions and represent Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine JROTC programs.

Oak Harbor will also compete in a Northwest Region Navy National meet April 21 at Curtis High School in University Place. The meet is the first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.

Results of the Oak Harbor meet

Wildcat Battalion came away with five first places in the team competition: unarmed drill, armed drill (gold team), academic No. 1, sporter rifle and dual unarmed exhibition drill (King and Bains).

Taking second were the precision rifle team, dual armed exhibition drill (Ethan Macaluso and Cameron Cecka) and dual unarmed exhibition drill (Justin Go and Jhaylan Munger).

Both color guard units finished third, as did Kyle Torres and Joseph Dixon in dual armed exhibition drill and the No. 2 physical strength team.

Taking fourth were armed drill (purple team), physical strength No. 1 and academic No. 2.

Individual performances were highlighted by the sporter rifle team which swept the top five spots out of 60 shooters, led by Rylan Quiros, who was followed by Dylan Sanchez, Ivan Snyder, Joshua Odeneal and Trevor Westman.

Sanchez was also second out of 16 in the male physical strength competition.

Bains and Manik were first in unarmed drill commander; Christopher Brooks had the high academic score; and Taylor Kesler finished first out of 21 in unarmed drill down.

Tristin Macaluso was second and Daimen Christensen fourth in armed drill commander.

Lauren Crossley fired her way to second place in precision air rifle; Cierra LeGendre took fifth.

Morgan Jessey was fifth and Shaina Aguirre sixth in female physical strength.

Jaelyn O’Hara, left, and Lauren Crossley zero in during the precision air rifle competition. (Photo by John Fisken)

Dylan Sanchez placed second in sporter air rifle Saturday. (Photo by John Fisken)

Oak Harbor color guard No. 1 — Bradley Moon, left, Jhaylan Munger, Aldrin Bonganay and John Francisco — took third in Saturday’s meet. (Photo by John Fisken)

Shaina Aguirre, left, Taylor Kesler, Elaine Aguirre and Jasmine Schultz represent Oak Harbor in the color guard competition. (Photo by John Fisken)

Caitlin Holbrook takes aim for Oak Harbor Saturday. (Photo by John Fisken)