Senior Joseph Grohs competes on Sept. 20
Courtesy | Daniel Johnson
Hillsdale’s shooting sports had an active day at home with the Hillsdale action shooting team placing second in two categories in the Hillsdale College and Springfield Armory Collegiate Championship, and the Hillsdale shotgun team competing with donors at the Klix Memorial Sporting Shoot, Sept. 20.
The action shooting team took second in the nation in both the limited and limited optics categories at the Ailes Action Shooting Range in a competition overseen by the United States Practical Shooting Association on Saturday. The team competed against eight collegiate teams including the U.S. Naval Academy, with nine of 12 Hillsdale athletes individually placing top 15 in both categories.
Junior and team captain Kayla Mullin took first in the limited division. Junior Clara Bozzay took fifth in the same division, while junior Jianna Coppola, freshman Joseph Beecher, and senior Christina Lewis placed 13th, 14th, and 15th, respectively.
In the limited optics division, junior and team captain John Beecher led the Chargers with a fourth-place finish. Seniors Joseph Grohs, Jonah Kirstein, and Brendan Burnham rounded out Hillsdale’s top finishers, placing sixth, 10th, and 13th, respectively.
“There are tons of successes,” John Beecher said. “But we didn’t get everything we wanted.”
According to Beecher, the team was disappointed not to place first, but proud of how they handled adversity together.
“There were definitely some hiccups that I was not expecting,” Beecher said. “But I was really proud of how we recovered, really proud of how we encouraged each other as a team, kept each other accountable, and in the end it came down to scores that were really, really close.”
According to Mullin, this tight competition is part of a rivalry with the U.S. Naval Academy and Texas A&M teams that has deep roots going back to when the team competed in the Scholastic Action Shooting Program.
“With A&M and Navy both, we have a little rivalry going on,” Mullin said. “At SASP, the competition we used to shoot at, us and A&M kind of traded off year-to-year, so it’s just the same at this one.”
Both Beecher and Mullin were optimistic that the Chargers will take back the winning title next year.
“I think we’ll definitely come back next year,” Mullin said. “It was so close.”
Mullin added that despite being a loss for the Chargers, the championship was a success for action shooting as a whole.
“We wanted to win for sure,” Mullin said. “But the goal of this match is to get as many schools here as possible, to get the word out that USPSA is moving into the collegiate area.”
At the John Halter Center the same day, the shotgun team sharpened their skills at the Klix Memorial Sporting Clays Shoot.
The shoot involved 10 teams of four donors and one Charger athlete shooting together.
According to freshman David Texas Ardis, the shoot was a fundraiser meant to connect donors and athletes in friendly competition.
“The fundraisers paid to have a squad at the shoot,” Ardis said. “We were able to participate and shoot with our donors.”
Freshman Henrik Kiledal’s team won the day with a combined score of 424. Senior Kyle Fleck’s team came in second with a score of 397, and junior Madeline Corbin’s team took third with a score of 374.
According to head shotgun coach Jordan Hintz, the shoot was organized in honor of a longtime supporter of Hillsdale’s shotgun program.
“Tom Klix was an alumni of the college and one of the earliest donors to contribute funds for a sporting clays station to the course at Halter,” Hintz said. “He passed away a few years ago.”
Hintz added that the shoot was a success for both athletes and donors.
“Overall the shoot went well,” Hintz said. “I think the attendees and team members had fun. We shot decently well.”
According to Ardis, the athletes were able to hone their skills at the match.
“We had a lot of high scores,” Ardis said. “I was lucky enough to shoot 100 out of 100, and we had some other 96s and 97s. It was good practice for the team too.”
