Shotgun team places 6th at championships

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Shotgun team places 6th at championships

The Hillsdale College shotgun team placed sixth in Division II at the ACUI Collegiate Clay Target Championships in San Antonio, TX March 19-26, beating the University of Alabama and Clemson University.

There were 95 schools and 1000 athletes. There were 21 teams competing in Division II, these teams containing up to 20 athletes. The 11 member shotgun team placed sixth for High Over All in Division II. 

Events shot at the championships included American trap, trap doubles, American skeet, skeet doubles, sporting clays, and super sporting. 100 targets were shot for each event resulting in a total of 600 targets total for the competition. 

“There’s some issues going on with the results right now,” Hintz said. “So all I’ve got to work off of are just the tentative live results. It looks like the team ended up in third place for trap doubles, skeet doubles, and sporting clays.”

Freshmen Josh Corbin and Kyle Fleck, sophomore Jackson Sokel, junior Woodrow Glazer, and senior Anthony LaMacchia scored in the top 10% for Men’s Individual High Over All score. 

Corbin placed 14th out of 597 for the Men’s Individual High Over All score after shooting a score of 560/600. 

According to Hintz, there were a handful of highlight scores. Sokel shot a 98 in trap doubles. Glazer shot a perfect score of 100 in skeet. Corbin shot a 93 for super sporting and Fleck shot a 92 for sporting clays.

The team went down to Texas a couple of days early for a side event called the International Shootout. Corbin and Fleck were the only members of the team that competed in the shootout.

“They both tied for first in international skeet,” Hintz said. “They had a shoot off, Josh taking first and Kyle taking second. Other schools would say that Josh is the national champion, but it’s really just a side event worth noting.”

This was the team’s first time competing in Division II. According to LaMacchia, there was one year in the past that the Hillsdale team competed in Division II, but none of the current members were on the team at the time. 

“Bigger teams can afford to have specialized shooters,” LaMacchia said. “With 11 people, we can’t afford to do that. We all need to be able to shoot well in all six events. On its face, competing against these big teams looks like a disadvantage. But it doesn’t have to be.”

According to Hintz, the team composed themselves very well throughout challenges brought on by the wind. 

“It was windier than usual the entire week but especially Tuesday,” Hintz said. “There were around 40 mile an hour sustained wind gusts that day. Unfortunately, that was the one day that we shot 200 targets. Right at the start, it put us at a pretty big disadvantage. 

According to Sokel, he is most proud of his doubles trap.

“The wind conditions were horrible but I ended up placing fifth out of 195,” Sokel said. 

According to senior Thomas Rodgers, he is pleased with his American skeet score.

“I was happy shooting a 95 in American skeet even though it didn’t post,” Rodgers said. “It was just a fun shoot overall.”

According to Senior Brandon Korhonen, he had a rough week but his single biggest accomplishment was in super sporting.

“I shot an 87 in super sporting which I was pretty happy with,” Korhonen said. “I put super sporting as a focus above pretty much every other discipline for myself and it paid off.”

According to sophomore Jessica Strasser, her biggest accomplishment at nationals was improving in sporting clays from last year.  

“I did significantly better in sporting clays but not well enough to post for our team scores,” Strasser said. “I started the week off on a low note after shooting poorly in American Trap which is usually my strongest discipline. But I kept going and tried very hard in each event.”

According to Rodgers, it’s difficult to be satisfied in shooting sports but he is happy with his performance.

“You always know that you could have picked up a couple more targets,” Rodgers said. “But standing back and looking at it, I put up a team score as an individual in five of the six events. There’s not really anything that sticks out that I feel could have been better.”

This competition was the senior team members’ last time competing on the team. 

According to Rodgers, he learned the most about how to deal with different opinions during his time on the team. 

“Everyone has an idea of where they believe they should place in events, but you still need to be mature and understand if you’re not performing you want everyone else to be better than you,” Rodgers said. “That can be really humbling and a very difficult thing to deal with.”

According to LaMacchia, being on the team has been one the greatest things that he has been able to do in his life so far.

“Contributing to the success of such a historically successful program is special,” LaMacchia said. “No matter how we did at any shoot, we all have a national championship story. No one can take that away from us and it’s going to be something that I look back on fondly for the rest of my life.”

According to Hintz, it is difficult for him to see these three senior graduate.

“They came to Hillsdale my first year coaching the team–the year after I graduated,” Hintz said. “As far as my involvement with the team, not as an athlete, but as a coach, these guys have been with me the whole time.”