Sophomore Sophia Buttema and senior Jessica Strasser walk to the range during the Charger Classic. Courtesy | Hillsdale College Athletic Department
Junior Gavin Drill took home the highest overall score in the Great Lakes Championship at the Grand Blanc Huntsman’s Club in Grand Blanc, Michigan, Sept. 9.
The National Sporting Clays Association Great Lakes Championship is one of the largest competitions in the state each year, with more than 150 athletes in attendance this year from Michigan and Ontario. The team competed in sporting clays and five-stand as practice for collegiate trials later this fall.
“It’s a stepping stone on the way to the next thing,” head coach Jordan Hintz said. “The targets were a little challenging, but it was a good competition experience. Some of them are pretty new to that sort of competition, so it was a lot of learning experience.”
Drill scored the highest overall among 77 shooters in the five-stand event after breaking 48/50 clays. Junior Josh Corbin followed with 46/50 clays in the AA class, and senior Ida Brown shot 40/50 clays in the A class.
Junior Jonathan Calabrese scored 44/50 in the B class, with sophomore Jordan Sapp trailing just behind him with 42/50 clays. Freshman Ava Downs and sophomore Leif Andersen both hit 41/50 clays in the C class. Junior paratrap shooter Sophia Bultema earned 33/50 in the E class.
“These tournaments allow us to see different presentations of targets against a multitude of different backgrounds and get us in the routine of traveling to another location to compete, as opposed to just going to our own range and seeing the same place over and over,” Calabrese said.
The annual Great Lakes Championship is open to the public, so any professional athlete can compete, not just collegiate athletes.
“Competing for fun against adults is a nice change from shooting against college athletes,” Andersen said. “It is more relaxed, and the team usually sweeps the competition. It is also interesting to shoot against people from all over.”
In sporting clays, Corbin placed second within the AA class with an 83/90 score. Brown placed third in the A class with an 80/90, while Sapp and Drill earned 83/90 and 81/90, respectively, in the B class. Downs placed at an 83/90 in the C class, with senior Jackson Sokel and Andersen following at 81/90 and 80/90 clays, respectively. Bultema placed second within the E class with a 54/90 score.
“The nature of sporting clays means that not everybody is always going to shoot as well as they think they could because the targets are never the same,” Hintz said. “Sometimes it challenges people a little bit more than others.”
The team predominantly focuses on trap and skeet, which are traditionally European events. Hintz argued that practicing American disciplines provides a needed challenge.
“To be honest, I’ve been focusing on bunker for the past couple weeks, and sporting clays wasn’t as heavy on me as it might have been for some of my teammates,” Bultema said.
Despite the weekend’s challenges, Hintz said he believes the team is excelling, partially due to its growth in size.
“I think that we’ve got a better team than we’ve ever had before,” Hintz said. “There’s more people and talent, but it is a lot more to manage, like having to take two vehicles to travel places. Practice time is more spread out. It’s more difficult for me to give people one-on-one time. It’s just important that we’re using our time wisely.”
With collegiate tournaments in October, the team is taking advantage of open shoots to try out new strategies.
“Tournaments like this are great practice for bigger events in the fall,” Andersen said. “During training, we have been implementing new techniques of shooting. It is always good to test such changes with the pressure of competition.”
The Chargers’ next tournament is Sept. 23 at the Detroit Gun Club in Commerce, Michigan. The shoot is the final stop of the NSCA Spartan Series, a multi locational event for Michiganders to practice travel competition.
“It was our first travel competition of the year with the whole team, and it felt like a good warm up for the longer travels and competitions,” Bultema said. “We were all in different places in terms of scores, but I think everyone had fun.”
