Colby trap team sets sights high

The Colby High School trap shooting team is gearing up for another season, bringing together a team of returning veterans to compete in what is becoming one of the fastest growing high school sports in the state.

A relatively new addition to the spring sports catalog, the trap shooting team is entering its fifth season. A part of the Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League (WSHSCTL), the Hornets are still awaiting which conference they will be assigned to and which teams they will be facing.

The conferences change on a yearly basis as the league attempts to match schools with similar sized programs, a task made somewhat easier by the fact that their geographical proximity to each other is not a factor. All shooting is done at each school’s own range and scores are then compared after the fact, with the exception being the state competition held in Rome, just south of Wisconsin Rapids.

Last season, Colby took sixth place in their conference and will be looking to improve on that this year.

And while their conference assignment matters to some extent, the competition is still very much based around individual and team performance, regardless of who they may find themselves up against.

“We want to have fun, more than anything,” head coach Dan Hederer, who has been with the team as a coach since its inception, said of the team’s mindset going into the season. “It’s a more individual sport, so the kids can shoot whatever they shoot. You obviously have good days and bad days, but as long as they are enjoying it.”

The program will be bringing back a good number of returners, with nine of its ten members having been part of the team before. Grady Steinman and Tucker Hayes return after competing in the varsity portion of the state event last year, with Steinman taking 59th place with a score of 93 and Hayes placing 186th with a score of 85.

JV state shooters Jacob Hoppe, Brennen Geiger, Will Hennes, Braxton Meyer, Tyler Timmers and Tristen Smazal all return as well. Hoppe had the highest finish at last year’s state tournament, finishing 27th in the JV division with a score of 86. Alana Brill and Nolt Dommer round out the roster.

These numbers are fairly typical for the team, but Hederer is looking for more ways to get kids involved. The range that the team utilizes at PapaO’s Gun Farm can comfortably field double the amount of shooters that the team currently has and he’d like to see the team take advantage of that availability.

“We’ve had anywhere from 10 to 15 kids shooting, though we’d like to have 20,” Hederer said. “There’s a possibility that we may ask Abbotsford next year to see if they would like to join us.”

In addition to perhaps adding Abbotsford into the mix, the trap team has changed when they will hold their sessions, moving them to Sunday afternoons in an effort to make it more accessible, especially to students who may participate in other sports or extracurriculars.

“We decided to try Sunday this year just because of the fact that it doesn’t interfere with the other sports as much,” Hederer said. “Otherwise the kids that were in track or baseball or other sports would have a tough time. We’d shoot at five o’clock on Monday because we had to get done too, but by the time the kids would get there after their other sports they’d be mentally drained and physically drained and not be able to shoot the way that they could. Or they’d have to shoot another night because of it. So we decided to try Sunday.”

As with years past, the team will have five weeks of competition in which their scores will be collected, with the addition of the last week of practice’s scores kept in case bad weather prevents the team from being able to shoot, at which point those scores can be used. Most practices and competitions will be held on Sunday, with the exception of April 9, which is Easter. That week’s session will be held Monday, April 10.

Following the regular season, the team will be able to compete at the state competition to be held at the WTA Complex on June 10th for Class 1A and June 11th for Class 2A. Both are to start at 8:00 a.m.