Patuxent High School’s NJROTC Wins Orienteering Championship And Earns A Spot At Nationals

LUSBY, Md. — Orienteering is a navigation sport, a combination of map reading, compass work, direction-finding and cross-country running. Competitors run a course through nature, finding their way through the woods with various hidden checkpoints. Patuxent High School demonstrated their skill at the Area 4 competition on Dec. 6, bringing home a championship and securing their spot at Nationals.

Patuxent High School’s Navy Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (NJROTC) beat out eight other teams from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., in the competition. The team is now eligible to go to the national competition in March in Alachua, Florida.

The team is made up of varsity, junior varsity and intermediate (freshman) teams, each consisting of five team members. The teams are mixed male and female.

In Patuxent High School’s case, the girls on the team were key in securing the win — Zoey Delong finished the course in an “astounding” time, according to Unit Commander Jacob Hinz, while her teammate “sprinted” the end of the course, and came in eight seconds under the cutoff to secure her team the first-place spot.

Not only was this win a team effort, Hinz said, but the orienteering team itself has served as an instrumental part of keeping the NJROTC unit in place at the high school.

Hinz, a retired U.S. Navy commander and the naval science teacher at Patuxent High, took over the unit this year. Prior to coming on board, there was discussion about disbanding it, but the orienteering team wanted to keep going.

“It’s been a beacon for the whole unit,” Hinz said. “This was a bunch of very motivated kids who wanted to keep going. They all banded together to decide they were going to give it a real shot, and now the rest of the school is really banding together for the unit.”

Hinz, formerly a science teacher in Charles County, also brought in a volunteer orienteering coach whose child had gone through the NJROTC program, and recently added a second NJROTC instructor.

Orienteering is just one of the fascinating possibilities for students participating in NJROTC. Classes and activities are designed to bring together skills in math, science, navigation, athleticism and more to help students develop leadership skills.

Of course, not everyone involved in NJROTC will go on to join the military. But the program is meant to shape them into leaders and build their confidence, no matter what path they take. The point, Hinz said, is to give them skills, and train leaders.

As they expand what the NJROTC offers, students will have the chance to participate in drone competitions, drill teams and launch high-powered rockets. Hopefully, no matter their interest, kids will come out of the program with a skill.

“Even in the worst case scenario, they come out of this with a high school diploma and a marketable skill,” Hinz said. “We want to challenge them and give them something they need to succeed in the real world.”

“This is such a rock solid core of kids,” he added about the orienteering team.

The team is heading to Nationals in March, and you can follow their journey on their Facebook page.

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