The Easley High School NJROTC orienteering team recently won the Area 06 Orienteering Championship.

EASLEY — The Easley High School Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) orienteering team competed in the eighth annual Area 06 Orienteering Championship held at Oconee State Park in Mountain Rest earlier this month.

Orienteering, also known as “the thinking sport,” is a mixture of cross-country running and land navigation. Area 06 is made up of 65 NJROTC units in North and South Carolina, and 16 of them were invited to earn the distinguished title of Area 06 Champion and an invitation to the Navy National Orienteering Championship in the Jan. 9 competition, which took place on three professional courses set by the Georgia Orienteering Club (GAOC).

Easley was also the host of the event, taking care of the never-ending administrative portion with scheduling each of the 214 runners, ordering trophies, feeding everyone and many other behind-the-curtain tasks that help make the overall outcome of the event a success.

The competition consisted of three courses. The easiest was a yellow course, which was 2.5 kilometers long, with nine control points. The middle difficulty course was the orange course, which was 4 kilometers long with 13 control points, and the green course was the hardest, covering a distance of 5.5 kilometers and 14 control points.

Easley’s top runners were Kelsie Hart, who took second on yellow, Chase Wengard, who took third on yellow, William Frazier, who took first on orange, and Brandon Marsh, who took second on green. Easley finished first overall on the yellow and orange courses and second on green.

Easley scored 485 points tabulated from the points given to the top 10 competitors on each course, making Easley the first-place team and 2015-16 Area 06 orienteering champion. Behind Easley for the second-place position were Laurens and South Aiken, who tied with 295 points each. All three of the units are now making plans and fundraising to compete at the Navy JROTC Nationals to be held near Seattle in March.

This was the third year that the Area 06 Orienteering Championship was held at Oconee State Park, and Bill Cheatum and Andrea Berger, the officials from GAOC, planned, set and scored the competition.

The duty park ranger, Brooks Garrett, was on hand and available to assist when any unsuspected issues arose. Easley’s NJROTC booster club staff provided food and refreshments for all.

The following cadets ran the course for Easley: Brenda Lopez-Perez, Hart, Marsh, Griff Von Schmittou, Frazier, Jacob Davis, Zachery Davis-Winarski, Dylan Henderson, Ryan Jeanes, Cody Marshall, Jay Scozzaro, Colton Sheriff, Joey Sigler, Wengard and Matthew West. The following cadets ran the course as non-competitors: Brady Beckman, Jason Jeanes, Freddy Juarez, Anthony Miller, Matthew Shilling and Jordan Watt.