While the rest of campus enjoyed their spring break, the Hillsdale College Shotgun Team shot clay pigeons in the ACUI National Collegiate Championship at the weeklong National Shooting Complex in San Antonio, Texas.
Hillsdale finished seventh in the Division II competition. About 552 shooters representing 64 colleges competed. This was the Hillsdale team’s first year as a Division II competitor. Last year, Hillsdale won first place in the Division III contest.
“We were the smallest Division II team there. We had six players; all the other schools had ten or more,” coach Bart Spieth said.
“The competition was fierce,” freshman Ian Pentecost said. “There were a lot of really good shooters there. All the Hillsdale shooters performed to their ability and shot really well.”
Competition is based on the top five scores from each team, so, “I can’t afford for anyone to have a bad day,” Spieth said.
Pentecost, sophomore Joe Kain, and senior Blake Scott contributed scores giving Hillsdale third place in International Skeet and second in the International Wobble Trap competition.
This year is Scott’s last on the team. He was part of the initial club that became the shooting team and the only shooter to have been at Nationals before. Scott had never shot competitively before coming to Hillsdale; in fact, he used to run track, but Spieth said, “he’s one of our top contributors.”
“A highlight was watching Ian get third in the Olympic Bunker event, and seeing the future of the team in him and looking forward to his next three years,” Scott said.
“Bunker is one of the harder events,” Pentecost said. “You have a 25 target preliminary and then you get to the final. I squeezed into the final in sixth place and then shot above my abilities in the final and came in third.”
The Bunker Trap event was sponsored by USA Shooting, and the winner received a spot on the US Olympic Development Team.
Pentecost shot a perfect 100 in American Trap on Easter Sunday, and he moved on to a shootout with nine other competitors.
“He would finish in fourth, but told me afterwards the he was thankful to be in church that morning before the competition- it was an early wake up call for the team,” Spieth said.
Scott said he enjoyed looking back on the program from where it started to where it is now.
“We all just started shooting and we’re getting really good at it,” Scott said, describing the initial club members. “I’m happy for the upcoming class.”
“We have great recruits coming in next year,” Spieth said. “One recruit is on the Olympic Development Team, another is All-American, and another is a four time Michigan State Champion.”
“I’m looking forward to a larger team,” Pentecost said. “I think we are going to be more competitive. I feel like next year we will place a lot higher.”
The season isn’t over quite yet for Pentecost and Scott. Spieth will be taking a few shooters to the Keystone Shooting Park in Dalmatia, Penn. for the 2013 Beretta USA Cup – Olympic Trap competition on April 20-21.