Wellington Clay Shooting Club takes 2nd at fall conference
by Amber Schmitz, Sumner Newscow — Clay shooting has proven to be a popular new high school sport among Wellington students. With 13 students on the co-ed team, they placed second at the fall league conference.
“This fall, we had four girls on the team, three of whom had shot before,” said clay shooting sponsor Linda Chase, who is also the school’s vocational agriculture teacher.
The season began on Sept. 25 with five competitions held. The conference is statewide, and schools compete against each other based on their team size. If there is a slightly smaller team, they go with increments of five for scores. Since Wellington has a team of 13, only the top five scores were counted in most of the competitions. In the conference, however, there were bigger teams, and 15-20 scores counted per team.
“We had six new shooters on our team of 13,” Chase said.
Scores are divided up based on shooter averages, so that students are in an individual division plus the team division, based on their average.
“They might wind up being average in notice shooter, which is an average of 0-11 targets, or junior varsity, which is 12-19 targets, or varsity, which is 20-25 targets on average,” Chase said.
During each competition, each team member shoots two rounds, which is 50 shots. When they practice, they shoot between 100-200 rounds. At state, they shoot 100 rounds per day.
Two of the four female team members received high rankings. Andi Dry received second place high season female, and Moriah Lyne received third place season high female. Overall, the team placed second in the conference.
“It’s a good mix of kids,” Chase said. “Varsity, JV and novice shooters all in different levels, and some kids who have moved up a level and raised their average. There are some who have moved out of JV into varsity and some who moved from novice to JV. It’s always fun to see them move to a different category and improve their average.”
All of the competitions and practices are held at Duck Creek Range in Winfield. The Chases hope to set up a range on their property in Oxford before the spring shooting season.
“My husband and I are going to try to set up a range over the winter that meets Amateur Trap Association rules to keep the kids closer to home,” Chase said.
A fundraising shoot is being planned to help raise money to pay for the sport.
“With grant money, we were able to pay for the kids’ clay targets for both the spring and fall seasons, and we were able to pay for the majority of the ammunition in the spring, but not in the fall,” Chase said. “The kids spend upwards of $50-$100 per week, and guns also play a big part in it.”
The spring league is a lot longer. The season starts around spring break, with a state tournament held in June. Competitions begin around the first of April, and are set up for 6-7 instead of five, so it takes the team longer to shoot.
“We had a lot of kids who really improved a lot,” Chase said. “Dakota Dry improved quite a bit and raised his average a lot this fall. I’m excited to see what he can do in the spring. A lot of new kids are excited to shoot in the spring. It’s going to be fun to see how they do. I’m excited to see what they can do this next spring and how many kids we get to shoot. It will be fun to see the team grow.”
