Local shooter Zoe Murray added another trophy to her collection recently.

The 13-year-old took top prize in the Novice Divison for 13 to 16-year-old girls at the Manitoba Junior Rifle Provincial Championship last weekend. she won the Beginner 1 Class last year, as well as a couple of team awards with the Portage Junior Rifle Club. She outshot 137 other marksmen in her age group this year to take the top prize.

"I think the hardest part is definitely the shooting," says Murray. "This year it was in a closed room which was nice because last year was an open room where everyone could watch you shoot. So this year it was closed a bit so that was a lot better. At one point a teammate next to me, his gun broke, so it was just blowing straight air and not shooting. That was really distracting but I managed to pull through it."

The competition starts with registration in the morning, then each competitor has to take a written exam worth 100 points. After that, there's a field exam which includes getting in and out of a vehicle, a boat, and over a fence, and again it's worth 100 points. Then the shooting portion is worth 200 points. Murray finished with 382 points.

"I was sitting beside my teammates at the awards banquet and they were reading out scores and they started reading the score for the winner of Novice and they said 382 points," says Murray. "My whole team looked at me when they said that because I had told them all my score, and everyone went crazy and started cheering for me. It was really exciting."

Murray broke her arm earlier this year during basketball and wasn't sure she would be able to compete in the competition, but luckily she healed up and was able to win provincials. She'd like to take her shooting ability even further in the future. Murray along with her teammates Serena Davies, Reese Hancock and Quinn McCutcheon also took home the top Novice Team award.