Area high school athletes excel at national clay target tournament

By Lee Epps

Colton Tollefsrud of Mabel-Canton was in the top 4% of trap shooters at the USA High School Clay Target National Championships at Mason, Michigan on July 8-10. He hit 195 out of 200 flying clay targets to place 71st among 1,716 competitors. Spring Grove’s Taylor Reinhardt placed ninth among all 262 girls and 109th among all shooters (boys and girls). She and SG teammate Isaac Vick each blew away 193 clay birds, but the tiebreaker placed Vick 118th among all shooters.

In the team competition, five Spring Grove shooters combined for a team score of 939 out of a perfect 1,000, and Mabel-Canton hit 930 targets. Both teams finished in the top fourth of the field with the Lions 41st and the Cougars 58th out of 232 teams. The first day of team shooting determined which 80 teams would qualify to shoot again on Day 2. Mabel-Canton and Spring Grove were the only Journal-area teams in the team competition, and both made the cut.

Likewise in the individual competition, only 400 (23%) of the 1,716 shooters made the cut to return for another 100 shots on the second day. Fifteen Journal-area individuals competed, seven from Mabel-Canton and six from Spring Grove along with one each from Chatfield and Grand Meadow. Seven scored well enough to shoot again on Day 2 (four Lions, two Cougars and one Gopher). After Mabel-Canton’s Tollefsrud (195/200), Spring Grove’s Reinhardt (193) and Spring Grove’s Vick (193) came Mabel-Canton’s Dawson Kleiboer (192), Spring Grove’s Camron Kraus (187), Chatfield’s Sam Finley (184) and Spring Grove’s Garrett Waldenberger (183).

Although not making the cut, Mabel-Canton’s Austin Snell (92/100) and Spring Grove’s Christian Bjerke (91) still finished in the top half of the field. Aaron Mork represented Grand Meadow, and Ashlyn Hammel was another Spring Grove shooter.  Also competing from Mabel-Canton were Riley Snell, Hunter Kelly, Shawn Swenson and Janessa Hershberger.

A review of all 11 Journal-area teams during both conference competition and the Minnesota state tournaments appeared in last week’s Fillmore County Journal.