You can do everything perfectly and still miss. Perfect sight alignment, perfect sight picture and a slow, steady squeeze on the trigger.

That is the easy part. The hard part is that in air riflery, a simple loose thought can still send a pellet wayward.

Pearl City senior Ashley Somera knows that better than most.

She is one of the captains of the finest public school air-riflery program in the state, and 2013 was supposed to be Somera’s coronation.

But Somera was off the mark in Saturday’s OIA championships on her home range, shooting well below her average for a 516 score. But as she said over and over after getting her disappointing score, "it’s OK."

"I’ve got a cold, but it’s OK," Somera said in a quiet voice.

"It’s not a good feeling to not shoot well, but it’s OK," she said seconds later.

"Some circumstances you can’t help — my gramma passed away," She continued as the sniffles turned to tears. "But it’s OK. It’s OK."

Somera lost her great grandmother, Maria Bajet, who was 94, three weeks ago. She has shot just fine most of the time in practice, but Saturday was one of those bad days that might be counted as a good day for any other shooter in the OIA. She was still well over the 500 mark that the bulk of the shooters on the range that day were aiming for.

YOU WON’T SEE many members of any air riflery team challenging classmates to an arm wrestling contest; they are not built that way. But make no mistake, the ability to hold a position and focus on a target for an entire morning makes them probably the most mentally tough athletes in any school.

Somera was cruising along on Saturday, egging on her teammates and excited to get into her favorite position on the range — standing. It’s where she passes the top shooters from other schools, sometimes forcing them to break their attention to see how many times in a row she is going to hit the bull. But not on Saturday. Maria needed Somera’s attention.

"She is always there, especially when I do standing," Somera said. "She liked to do everything standing. Sewing standing. Folding clothes standing. I don’t know, she just stood all of the time, so she just pops up every now and then."

Kristi Takaki won the OIA title and led the Chargers to the team title, and Somera more than contributed to the team’s goal of eclipsing 2,100 points. Takaki and the rest of the Chargers, Jennifer Loui, Kristi-Lin Wasano and Danielle Tanabe, picked up Somera and know that their greatest contribution by the time states come around next week at the Blaisdell might come off the range.

The team of quiet girls is as close as any at the school and will support their ailing leader for as long as she needs it. Usually it is Somera and Wasano who keep everyone’s spirits up, but now it is the other way around.

"They tell me ‘it’s OK’ and things happen for a reason," Somera said. "Maybe this happening will help me at states if I think of her and make it my goal to shoot for her."

SOMERA WENT to states as a freshman as an alternate but didn’t get to shoot. She went back the next year and finished 11th as a sophomore, and followed that up with a seventh-place standing as a junior. Her best results always seem to come at the biggest competitions, and Somera doesn’t expect this year to be any different.

"Especially when I zone out I know I can almost shoot a perfect," Somera said. "Just (Saturday) I couldn’t do that. Hopefully I can shoot 10 points higher than I normally do."

No matter what happens at states, Somera is not going to be defined by a number. She plans on moving on to the Air Force or National Guard after graduation before making her way to Washington, where she hopes to study to be an oncologist. That is where the mental toughness that all good shooters share is going to come in handy.

And when it does, she might look back at being cut from the volleyball team as one of the best things that ever happened to her. She admits that if it were not for her friends on the range, as well as the success that has found her, she probably would have run straight back to volleyball and given that sport another go.

"There is a lot of pressure piling on her," Pearl City coach Les Aranaydo said. "She wants the team to do well and everybody recognizes her name and she has to live up to it. She needs to come back strong and she will do it after we talk about it, because she needs to talk about it. The whole team just wants her to be OK."