Freshman Roman Barrett, junior Luke Johnson, and senior Davis Hay all placed. Courtesy | Hillsdale Athletic Department.
The Hillsdale shotgun team swept the podium at the Hillsdale Invitational Shoot Feb. 21, taking first overall and winning three of the four events at the shoot.
The shoot included both collegiate and high school competitors in the Trap, Doubles Trap, Doubles Skeet, and 5-Stand events.
The Chargers placed first overall in both the men’s and women’s categories, with junior Luke Johnson taking first for the men, followed by freshman Roman Barrett and senior Davis Hay. For the women, sophomores Taylor Dale, Marin McKinney, and Lucci Kern took first, second, and third, respectively.
“This shoot is kind of like a warm-up,” senior team captain Leif Andersen said. “To see where our team is at in terms of scores. We cater our disciplines that we shoot at our invitational to what we think we need to work on.”
Each event involves shooting clay targets launched from various trajectories in a specific amount of time. Targets in the Trap and Skeet events are launched from a standardized trajectory, while in 5-Stand, a type of Sporting Clays event, they’re shot from a variety of different angles and depths.
Hay led the Chargers to a decisive win in the Skeet Doubles event, shooting 50 out of 50. Freshman Max Versluys, Johnson, senior Kyle Fleck, and junior Madeline Corbin rounded out the top five in the event, each shooting 49 of the 50 targets.
“We shot maybe the best we ever have in Skeet Doubles,” head coach Jordan Hintz said. “Shooting perfect scores in Skeet Doubles is quite challenging.”
The team won 5-Stand,, after the team’s top five hit 136 out of the 150 targets. Freshmen David Texas Ardis and Zach Hinze tied for the top individual score in the event, each hitting 28 out of 30 targets. Dale and Johnson tied for second with a score of 27, and McKinney took third with a 26.
“I’m the one that set up that 5-Stand,” Hintz said. “And 28 is probably better than I was expecting anyone to shoot on it. That’s a pretty dang good score.”
The Chargers also took first in Doubles Trap after sweeping the top five individual scores. Barrett took first after shooting a 100 out of 100, followed by Andersen and Johnson scoring 95, Kern with 93, and Hay with 91.
The team narrowly placed second in Trap after Olivet College, with a score of 242 out of 250 targets hit. Dale took first in the women’s category for the event, hitting 49 out of 50 targets, while junior Alex Hoffman took third in the men’s category with the same score. Hinze, Hay, Kern, and McKinney rounded out Hillsdale’s top six in the event after each shooting 48 out of 50 targets.
“Our Trap score wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be,” Andersen said. “We kind of struggled a bit on Trap Singles. That’s where we’d like to improve a little bit, but it was nice to see our Trap Doubles and Skeet Doubles scores be really good, because that’s what we’ve really been working on.”
Dale said she was encouraged by the growth she saw in the shoot.
“I did considerably better than I had been doing in practice,” Dale said. “It’s not perfect by any means, I know I’ll still keep working, but it was definitely like that next stepping stone that gives me a little confidence going into these next competitions.”
Hintz said the team consistently performs well in Trap.
“It’s not like this group isn’t incredibly proficient in Trap already,” Hintz said. “It just, for some reason or another, wasn’t their day on Saturday. It just helps you see how to best tune up for these bigger competitions.
According to Hintz, the shoot showed the team how to best prepare for the upcoming conference and national championships.
“We’ll have a couple of practices between now and when we leave for Sparta,” Hintz said. “So everyone will be doing whatever they need to to make sure they’ll have the highest level of confidence across the board.”
Andersen said the team is aiming high in the upcoming conference championship.
“We’re looking to win team High-Over-All,” Andersen said. “There’s going to be some division one schools there and they usually put up some pretty good competition for us, but we’re looking to beat them.”
Dale added that the team’s ambitions are united.
“As a team, our goal is to win and perform our best,” Dale said. “And to be there for each other, to be good teammates.”
The team will compete next in the Association for College Unions International and Scholastic Clay Target Program Conference Championship in Sparta, Illinois Feb. 27 – March 1.
