Colts Neck High School ROTC Cadets Compete in 2015 Navy Junior ROTC National Orienteering Championship

Over Presidents’ Day Weekend, ten Colts Neck High School (CNHS) students/cadets in the Freehold Regional High School District’s Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps Academy went on an exciting, unusual field trip. They traveled to the Los Angeles area to compete in the 2015 Navy Junior ROTC National Orienteering Championship.

Orienteering is listed as one of the top five adventure sports in the world. The sport requires participants to find designated points on a map, utilizing a compass to travel through whatever terrain the competition location provides. Competitors must prove that they visited each point along the way utilizing an electronic punch at each location. They must traverse their course as quickly as possible in the order listed on their map. The average run distances between 5K and 10K.

Colts Neck’s Orienteering Team boasts over 50 active cadets. The team competes about eight times per year in numerous states, though primarily in Maryland and New Jersey. Naval Science Instructor Master Chief Petty Officer Dave Loring is the team’s coach and he selects competitions, both NJROTC and civilian sponsored, that challenge the experienced cadets and allow the novices to build their skills. The CNHS cadets have earned national recognition and are respected as a force to be reckoned with by NJROTC Units nationwide.

Ten intrepid orienteers from CNHS earned the honor of representing their unit at the national championship in California. Like other high school athletes those chosen to attend were the most consistent performers on the team.

CNHS’s cadets secured their place in the California competition by capturing their home NJROTC Area 4 Orienteering Championship in October 2014. They also competed twice in Maryland in October and December 2014, and finished 3rd at the NJROTC Area 5 Championship. At the national championship, the cadets faced off against the best NJROTC Orienteers in the nation from NJROTC Units representing California, Nevada, Washington, Texas, Georgia, Florida, New York, West Virginia, and Maryland. The CNHS cadets were the lone representatives from New Jersey.

The CNHS cadets did their best and finished 10th out of 24. Top CNHS performers included Cadet Kristen Schandall, who finished 7th in the nation out of 42 women competing in the championship, and Cadet Louis Rondinella, who finished 16th out of 184 males. Cadet Rondinella also is the team’s captain and Cadet Commanding Officer of the NJROTC Academy’s Cadet Battalion.

FRHSD NJROTC Academy cadets are eagerly looking forward to competing again next year and are continuing to compete as often as possible for the remainder of the school year. The group wants to be ready for next year’s competition. The title “National Champions” sounds mighty good to them.

Freehold Regional High School District’s NJROTC Academy is a four-year leadership and character development program. The mission of the overall Navy Junior ROTC Program is to instill in students in United States secondary educational institutions the values of citizenship, service to the United States, personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment. The mission of the Colts Neck High School Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) is to instill in our student cadets our core values of honor, courage, and commitment, and the values of citizenship and service to our community upon which they can individually build a foundation of trust and leadership that will be recognized as the hallmark of our unit. The vision of the NJROTC Instructors is to build cadet’s individual self-confidence and leadership abilities to enable them to succeed and excel, individually and collectively.