Senior Lief Andersen at Hillsdale College shotgun’s media day at the Biermann Center.
Courtesy | The Hillsdale Athletic Department
The Hillsdale shotgun team took second overall in the Association of College Unions International and Scholastic Clay Target Program Upper Midwest Championship Feb. 27-March 1, with four female athletes placing in the top five.
The Chargers competed in the American Skeet, Doubles Skeet, American Trap, Doubles Trap, Sporting Clays, and Super Sporting disciplines against five other regional schools at the shoot.
Each shooting discipline in the championship involves shooting clay targets flying from various trajectories. In skeet and trap, known as line games, targets are launched the same way every time, while targets in Sporting Clays and Super Sporting are launched from a variety of unique angles.
Sophomore Taylor Dale placed second overall in the women’s division of the shoot, followed by junior Madeline Corbin, sophomores Marin McKinney and Lucci Kern, and junior Ava Downs rounding out the top five.
In the men’s division, freshman Zach Hinze took sixth overall, followed by seniors Davis Hay and Leif Andersen in seventh and eighth.
Corbin and Dale shot 100 out of 100 targets in American Skeet, taking first and second respectively in the women’s division through a shoot-out. On the men’s side, Hinze and Hay also shot a perfect 100 in the event, placing second and sixth respectively for the men after a shoot-out.
“Our biggest performance in Skeet,” head coach Jordan Hintz said. “We shot 499 out of 500 as a team, which is either the highest we’ve ever shot, or tied for it.”
Hinze and sophomore Nathaniel Meloro took fourth and fifth in the men’s division of Doubles Skeet after shooting 50 out of 50 targets, while Corbin took second in the women’s division of that event with a score of 49 out of 50 targets.
Corbin, Dale, Downs, Kern, and McKinney took second through sixth place in the women’s division of Super Sporting. Hinze took fourth in the men’s division of that event.
In Sporting Clays, Dale placed second for the women followed by Corbin and McKinney in fourth and fifth. Andersen took eighth in the men’s division of Sporting Clays.
Kern, Dale, and McKinney took second, third, and fifth respectively in the women’s division of Doubles Trap. Hay took sixth in the men’s division.
In American Trap, Senior Sophia Bultema took fourth, followed by Dale in sixth.
Hintz added that he was encouraged by the team’s second place finish behind Lindenwood University, a NCAA Division I school.
“Lindenwood’s the biggest team in the country,” Hintz said. “To be that close to a team that large, to beat them in one discipline, to get pretty dang close to them and a couple others, is always an accomplishment. The chances you get five good scores out of 55 people instead of five good scores out of 16 obviously favors one way.”
Bultema said the competition showed the team what to focus on going into nationals.
“I think it kind of woke a lot of people up,” Bultema said. “Like, ‘Hey, this is what we need to practice.’ It gives you a preview of what nationals is going to look like. And I think that’s really ramping some people up.”
Andersen, a team captain, said the team knows where to concentrate their energy heading into nationals.
“We’re just looking at maintenance work in the disciplines we shot well in,” Andersen said. “We just need to get better in American Trap.”
Andersen added that he has high hopes for the team heading into nationals.
“I think we have the confidence and the skill set to go down to nationals in two weeks and win,” Andersen said.
The team will compete next in the ACUI/STCP Collegiate Clay Target Championship in San Antonio, Texas March 16 – 21.
