Senior Sarah Wagoner remembers first shooting casually with her dad as a 6 year old. 

“My dad and I used to shoot cans when I was very young,” Wagoner said. “It wasn’t anything consistent. We would just goof around a couple times a summer and occasionally throughout the year.”

Wagoner said she first heard about Hillsdale College’s varsity pistol team from one of her friends when they were on a summer trip together with the college. As a now fifth-year senior, Wagoner chose to try out for the team her first senior year. 

“He mentioned it to me because the team was having formal tryouts as it was transitioning from a club to a team,” Wagoner said. “I thought it sounded like fun and something that I could get better at, so I decided to try out.”

The tryouts consisted of practice shooting stages with the coaches giving various range commands. Wagoner said the coaches were looking for more than just a thorough knowledge of the sport and accuracy in shooting.

“They were essentially seeing if you could listen and obey range commands,” Wagoner said. “A care about learning and actually being safe was the biggest thing for them.”

Coach Adam Burlew said he thought that Wagoner would do well on the team after noticing she was  teachable. 

“At tryouts she kind of started out at the bottom of the pack,” Burlew said. “But her demeanor, mannerisms, and the way she handled herself showed us that she was coachable and would be a good addition to the team.” 

Once on the team, Wagoner said she was met with a series of challenges, and found the mental game to be the defining factor in shooting.

“It was a lot of information and challenges, just trying to understand what was going on, how to play this game, as well as the physical aspects of learning,” Wagoner said. “But also a big part was learning how to handle the nerves, because shooting ultimately at the end of the day is very much a mental game.” 

As her time on the team progressed and she began competing, Wagoner noticed the difficult part was identifying and respecting her own limits.

“Really you learn how to do the physical process pretty quickly because there’s not a lot of components to it,” Wagoner said. “However, the pressure comes from standing in the shooting box and hearing the timer go off; fighting the urge to go fast and remembering your own limitations was a hard, but big, part of this.” 

At her most recent competition in Talladega, Alabama, for Nationals, Wagoner placed first in the 1911 division and third in the centerfire division. Wagoner said it was rewarding to see her improvement. 

“Compared to my first competition, my ability to control my nerves and stand up there and trust my training has gotten much better,” Wagoner said. “At some point you just have to trust yourself and the gun, because it’s going to be working with you if you are not fighting against it.”

When not competing, Wagoner commits approximately 9-10 hours a week to shooting, practicing live fire on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and dry fire on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wagoner said she greatly enjoys the practices and being with the team and coaches. 

“It has been fantastic. The team is really good about supporting each other,” Wagoner said. “I enjoy the challenge of it because as soon as you get a skill down you find another thing to work on; there is always something new to be learning and working on.” 

Burlew noted Wagoner’s consistency and said her work ethic is impressive. 

“She is really disciplined. I don’t think she has missed a practice, and if she did, it was for something serious,” Burlew said. “She takes it seriously out there, puts a lot of effort in, and is super supportive of everybody.”

Senior and fellow teammate Gregory Clements said he also enjoys Wagoner’s presence on the team. 

“She is a very positive and mature influence on the team that can help straighten us out when we are getting silly,” Clements said. “She is also very capable of sitting in the background and waiting for the perfect moment to strike with a joke; she is a lot of fun and we are all happy to have her on the team.”

Outside of shooting, Wagoner, an economics and history double major and German and mathematics double minor, dedicates herself to her studies. When she has free time, she can be found either reading a good book, talking with friends, playing piano, or attending a shooting match for fun.