MACHIAS – The two Down East law enforcement officers who competed last weekend in a national shooting contest in Montana performed well enough to earn a trip back to the exclusive finale on Sept. 11.

Rodney Merritt of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and Jason “Jake” Scott of the Machias Police Department scored the second-best of 32 teams in the 5.11 Challenge, a first-time contest that brought law enforcement officers from around the country to Bighorn County, Mont.

The top three teams are being flown back, along with their families, to compete for $100,000 worth of law enforcement gear for their departments as the top prize. That’s enough to outfit 200 department members – about twice as many who work for the Sheriff’s Department and smaller police forces in the counties’ cities and towns.

The pair is guaranteed to bring back at least $25,000 worth of gear as third prize, or enough to outfit 50 men and women. Second prize would place $50,000 worth of gear for 100 officers, or about $500 worth of stuff per officer.

The load of prizes would be split between the Machias Police Department, which has 12 officers on its roster, and the Sheriff’s Department, which has 67 officers. Part-time employees compose the majority of both rosters, and there is considerable overlap between the two agencies.

But, as both men say, it’s not about the stuff they will bring home for their colleagues. The experience of just making the first trip to Montana has been a winning one already.

“You can’t measure the benefits of what’s happened so far,” said Merritt, a 16-year veteran of the department. “This whole contest was set up for ordinary officers across the country, bringing them together and having them learn from each other.”

How Scott, 30, and Merritt, 44, found themselves on the range in Montana, then fly-fishing the next day in the Bighorn River, goes back to last winter.

Scott wanted to order some tactical gear for the Machias department off the Internet. Up came the Web site 5.11challenge.com, for the 5.11 Tactical Challenge. He signed up Merritt and himself for the chance to win an expenses-paid trip to Montana. The first-year contest supported by major suppliers of law enforcement supplies and gear would draw 32 teams from around the country for camaraderie among cops, plus some contests in handling handguns, rifles and shotguns.

Out of the 3,000 teams that wanted to be selected, one was announced each week on the Web site. The Machias men had all but given up when they were identified in July as the 30th of the 32 teams.

Merritt was hanging out with the dispatchers when the first call came from Montana. In disbelief as he heard the dispatcher taking notes, he asked that the recorded call be replayed before he realized it was for real.

When Scott was called, he had just finished working his fourth straight 12-hour shift. Tired, he told the Montana caller that he enjoyed the laugh, but didn’t appreciate someone else’s joke.

“I’ve never won anything before in my life,” Scott said. “I bought a scratch-off ticket the day we got called, just to see if my luck would hold.”

The men had five weeks to prepare for the trip. They enjoyed the support of every other agency that heard about their good fortunes.

The Maine Marine Patrol lent some steel targets for their practice, and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency provided some ammunition and paper targets. Others, such as Maine State Trooper Travis Willey, pitched in with more targets, as did the Bangor office of the FBI.

“All of a sudden, we became the home team,” Scott said.

Once out west, the training that Scott and Merritt had put in at the Pleasant River Fish and Game Club in Columbia turned into winning scores. Teams had competed over four weekends in July and August in groups of eight, and scores were posted weekly on the Web site.

Merritt, who was in the last group to visit Montana, knew the numbers he and Scott needed to advance to the final three. Merritt ended up with the highest individual score of the 60 shooters. (The four men representing the New York City Police Department and the Secret Service did not take part after being selected as two of the teams).

Next week, the Down East deputies will face teams from Raleigh, N.C., and Dallas. The North Carolina team had shot 1,502 for first so far, and Merritt and Scott combined to shoot 1,360. Dallas, in third place, had a score of 1,284.

Merritt and Scott are known locally as good shots. But Merritt said, “You could have picked anyone off our rosters, and they would have competed well. That speaks for our firearms training and our officers.”

Fortunately, officers drawing their weapons Down East is a rarity.

“The training is for the rare time an officer has to use his weapon,” Merritt said. “It’s like wearing a seat belt, if you’re prepared with the training. When you respond to incidents here, it’s so long to bring in a backup, that you’re on your own if it’s a firearms situation.

“It does not hurt the image of the agencies for the public to know that we do stack up well across the country with our firearms training,” Merritt continued. “They can know that we are not just playing around during the training, we take it seriously.”

Washington County Sheriff Joseph Tibbetts is thrilled with all that has happened so far.

“They are winners to us, no matter what happens when they go back,” he said. “We are very proud of them.