By Bruce Karnick

Shooting sports are relatively new to Hastings High School. The Trap team just completed it’s tenth season as a sanctioned school sport and the Skeet team just finished their sixth season. Yes, shooting sports are indeed sanctioned school sports, and they are by far the safest.

“The worst injury we have ever seen in skeet shooting is somebody either getting a little bit of a short sore shoulder, from the from the recoil of the shotgun, or sometimes their cheeks are getting slightly bruised, because a gun isn’t quite fitted perfectly. But we’re not talking anything outside of that. Never are they ever injured where they can’t come back and shoot. As of right now, we have never had an injury,” explained Skeet Head Coach Darin Berg.

Trap Head Coach Earl Robinson joked along with a ‘pinched piece of skin from loading the shells thought process’ and then expanded on other silly ‘injuries’ he has seen away from the shooting side. “We’ve never had an injury from somebody shooting the gun. I have seen kids walk into trees and it’s like, how did you do that. But that goes back to the fact of them being kids, right? You know, I mean they have so much stuff going on nowadays it’s unreal.”

The oddities of the injuries, walking into trees or tripping on a rock is probably the worst injury the coaches have witnessed. Statewide, there have been zero shooting injuries according to both coaches in sanctioned high school Trap or Skeet practices and competitions. A fact that both coaches were not only proud of, but adamant about. The team requires students to have gone through a certified firearms safety course and have their firearm safety permit, which is also required for kids under 18 to get a hunting license. The enforcement of safety at practice and on the line is that of zero tolerance. With the exception of loading at the line and then storing at the end of the day, firearms are to be held with two hands at all times. Any unsafe motions with the firearm and the student is sent home for the day. Multiple unsafe actions and they are removed from the team. With firearms, safety is the most important aspect taught, and these teams handle it perfectly.

The student athletes cannot come to school with their firearm in their vehicle. Most of them have parents bring the firearm to practice or meet them after school for the transfer. Some bring them to friends houses in town to easily pick them up on their way to practice or a meet. If there is a heated disagreement of some kind between student athletes or a fight at practice, both students are sent home without their firearms and a parent must return to pick them up from the coaches. The checks and balances around firearm safety with these teams is absolutely incredible. The kids are being taught healthy safety conditions and respect for both life and firearms, a win for all.

For new students joining the team, coaches do have shotguns available to train with until the student decides to acquire their own because there are many families that simply do not have firearms in their home.

What is the difference between Trap and Skeet?

Trap is a single target tossed from near the shooter. Typically Trap travels from behind the shooter, relatively straight away from the shooter. Think of viewing a quarterback throwing the football from the quarterback’s eyes.

Skeet is one or two targets crossing in front of the shooter from left to right and right to left. Think of how fans see the football travelling in the air on TV.

Skeet is the more complicated of the two shooting styles because the clay target is crossing in your line of sight quicker than the one does going away from you resulting in needing to lead the target properly then add in a second target and now you have to move side to side quickly. Because of skeet being more complicated, athletes are required to have one year of trap team experience before they can also shoot skeet.

The Trap team had 81 students total this year due to covid restrictions. Skeet had only 15. Normally the numbers are almost double that. Think about that for a second, nearly 150 kids on a shooting team per year for ten years. That is more than Football and Dance Team combined. (Yes, Dance team is the second most popular sport in the state behind football and Hastings does not have a team.) The biggest limitation that shooting sports have for numbers is gun club availability. Hastings normally utilizes the 3M Gun Club between Hastings and Cottage Grove. This year they had to move around a little between Hampton, The Minneapolis Gun Club in Lakeville, South St. Paul Gun Club and eventually back home to 3M once that re-opened. Hastings has the biggest Trap team in the state.

Scoring is very simple. Each shooter has 25 targets per round for four rounds. The maximum score you can get is 100/100 and each miss deducts one from the score. The coolest part of Trap and Skeet shooting. Both Males and Females have an equal chance to win and are part of the same team. The top five shooters for each team have their scores added together for the final team score XXX out of 500.

How did the teams fare at state?

The Trap Team attended the 2021 MN State High School Clay Target League Trap Championship on June 22nd in Alexandria. Over 6,500 shooters from over 300 teams around the State competed over nine days at the World’s Largest Youth Trap Shooting sport event. Hastings had 60 students consisting of 18 females and 42 males, which is half the normal team size, shoot on the final day of competition against over 580 shooters. Out of 17 teams shooting in Class 9A Hastings placed 5th overall with 478 points each shooting at 100 targets. First place team was Prior Lake with 485 points. Hastings high gun males were Ayden Trembath (77) Novice Division, Zander Hallis (87) Junior Varsity and Hunter Rowan (97) Varsity. High gun females were Novice Taylor Pelava (81) who earned a 2nd place medal for the Novice Division, Emily Heinbuch (85) Junior Varsity and McKayla Kielas (91) Varsity. The Novice team finished 4th of 10 teams, Junior Varsity 7th of 11 teams and Varsity 4th of 10 teams.

Individuals that shot 25 out of 25 in Alexandria were Morgan Herrmann, Brennen Kieffer, McKayla Kielas, Adam Mc-Callum, Benjamin McKinney, Collin Meyers, Luke Nadeau, Hunter Rowan and Alex Ussatis. Noah Woodward shot a 50 straight.

The Raiders also qualified as a team finishing 13th out of the top 40 teams overall and sent the top 5 shooters of the day to compete on June 25st in Prior Lake against the other 40 teams at the MN State High School League Invite Only. The team consisting of Brennen Kieffer (93), Brock Mosher (98), Luke Nadeau (92), Hunter Rowan (88) and Noah Woodward (91) finished in 17th place with 462 points. First place team was Red Wing with 484 points. Luke Nadeau shot a straight 25 and Brock Mosher shot two straight 25’s.

The MN State High School Clay Target League recognizes the shooters with the top 100 league averages as the MSHSL Clay Target League All-State Trap Team. These students receive a special All-State patch and qualify for the MSHSL Clay Target Championship. Brennen Kieffer, Brock Mosher, Gavin Smith and Noah Woodward earned the honor of competing at the invite only tournament in Prior Lake on June 25th each shooting at 100 targets. Woodward finished 92nd (82), Kieffer 84th (87), Mosher 70th (90) and Smith 56th (92). Minnesota is the first and only state high school athletic association to recognize and support a trap shooting tournament.

Hastings will have 16 shooters registered for the 3rd annual National High School Clay Target League Trap Championship in Mason, Michigan July 7th – 11th. They will be competing against almost 2,000 of the nation’s best youth trap shooters at a 44-trap house facility. The team/individual competitors are Carter Bauer, Amelia Clark, Emily Heinbuch, Brennen Kieffer, McKayla Kielas, Tanner Lamb, Adam Mc-Callum, Cameron McDonald, Benjamin McKinney, Brock Mosher, Luke Nadeau, Tim Peine, Jaidyn and Kaitlyn Schutz, Gavin Smith and Noah Woodward. Ten of these shooters will also compete in the team competition.

HHS Skeet had their state tournament after finishing second in the section. The Skeet portion is much smaller than the Trap portion, it only went for two days, not nine. Hastings earned the top spot with a 458/500 2021 State Tournament and Season Awards for Skeet: Class 2A Conference, Second Place Team MN State High School State Skeet Tournament (1st Place) Brock Mosher State Tournament Class 2A Varsity Male High Gun (2nd Place) Jaidyn Schutz State Tournament Class 2A Junior Varsity Female High Gun (2nd Place) Congratulations to the HHS Trap and Skeet Teams for their great season this year. For kids looking to join the team for next year, feel free to contact the coaches listed on the School’s website, http://hs.hastings.k12.mn.us/athletics_activities/ student_activities.

Work on the Hwy. 316 rebuild project has mostly stopped due to a needed change discovered by inspectors. The drain pipes for storm water were deemed too small for the amount of runoff the area could face. MnDoT is working with engineers to redesign the plans and get the proper pipes ordered. Photo Submitted.

State Champion Skeet team back row: Coach Matt Steding, Ben McKinney, Taren Connell, Mason Johnson, Head Coach Darin Berg. Front row: Brock Mosher, Jaidyn Schutz, Noah Woodward, Cody Frandrup, Brennen Kieffer. Not Pictured: Carter Bauer, Coaches Don Baldwin and David Route. Photo Submitted.