Allen High School hosted its first JROTC Raider competition of the year on Oct. 16. The competition was held in the AHS PE gym, rugby field and the Don Rodenbaugh Natatorium. 

“A Raider competition is like a savage run and spartan race, but it’s a little more militaristic in the sense that we do Marine Corps challenges like the combat fitness test, rope bridge, and a rock wall,” said senior cadet Sgt. Maj. William Hanchett. 

Allen’s Raider team is a co-ed glorified physical training team. They come together a few times a week to practice and improve themselves for upcoming competitions. Although the team is fairly new, it’s growing fast.

“We only started pushing the Raider team last year,” says senior Col. Haviland Sutton.

Four schools competed in total: Richardson, ILT Garland, McArthur and Allen. Out of the four, two were Marine Corps schools, one was Air Force JROTC school and one was Army. All teams were co-ed, meaning men and women were put to compete against each other equally.  Allen’s Raider team participated in the event, but did not place due to being the host.

“It was tiring, fun, challenging, and very physically demanding. It was probably the highlight of my senior year though,” Hanchett said.

The course started off with a combat fitness test, then cadets then ran to the PE gym to shoot rifles. Cadets were scored on shooting accuracy, not the speed. The participants then rushed to the Exchange passway to conduct a rope bridge. Each team finished the course in between 1-2 hours, ILT Garland coming in first, Richardson then Mcarthur. The winning award was a paddle.

“We were really happy to see how much better our team this year was compared to last year,” Allen JROTC instructor Sgt. Maj. Bruce Cole said.

Allen will host another Raider competition in the spring.