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Mabel-Canton finished 28th and Spring Grove 42nd among 261 qualifying high school trap teams at the 2024 national tournament in Mason, Mich/, on July 12-14. That put the Cougars among the top 11% and the Lions among the top 16% of the top teams in the nation. Individually, Spring Grove’s Taylor Reinhardt ranked 12th among 257 girls, and Rushford-Peterson’s Samual Finley 113th among 1,374 boys. Thus, Reinhardt finished among the top 5% of all the girls and Finley among the top 8% of the guys.
Mabel-Canton and Spring Grove were the only two Journal area teams in the national competition, conducted by the USA High School Clay Target League. Nineteen individual shooters competed for individual honors, representing seven of the 11 Journal-area teams. There were seven from Mabel-Canton, five from Spring Grove, three from Kingsland and one each from Chatfield, Houston, LeRoy-Ostrander and Rushford-Peterson. All had to have met qualification standards from regular-season competition.
Team competition
Each team consisted of five shooters, each firing at 100 airborne clay targets. There were 261 teams in the first round, with only 81 squads (31%) advancing into the final round. Mabel-Canton had the 20th-best qualifying score (477 out of 500 shots) before finishing with the 28th- highest score (472) in the finals. Spring Grove had the 46th-best qualifying score (470) before improving to 42nd in the finals (468).
Shawn Swenson led Mabel-Canton in both rounds of team competition, hitting 99 of 100 targets during the qualifying round and 98 in the finals. The other four Cougars in the team competition rounds were (with their scores) Colton Tollefsrud (97 qualifying, 93 finals), Hunter Kelly (91, 96), Mason Swenson (95, 92) and Carter Hershberger (95, 93). Available as alternates were Katrina Whalen and Janessa Hershberger.
The five Lions during the team rounds were Christian Bjerke (99 qualify, 95 finals), Garrett Waldenberger (93, 95), Taylor Reinhardt (92, 96), Roland Bjerke (95, 89) and Tyler Turner (91, 93). Spring Grove had no alternates. The 99 by Christian Bjerke in the first round was the best score of the three days for Spring Grove.
Individual competition
Each individual had qualified with his or her regular-season scoring average. Individual competition was completely separate from the team rounds. For the dozen who shot in both categories, their scores during team competition did not figure into his or her individual ranking. The individual competition began with 1,734 shooters each firing at 100 clay targets. Those with the top 400 scores (the top 24.5%) – girls and boys combined – advanced to the championship finals. In that final championship round, girls competed against girls, boys versus boys.
Seven of the 19 Journal area qualifiers scored well enough to make the top 400 cut and shoot again in the finals. Five were making repeat trips to the national finals. The Journal area best score in the first round belonged to four-time national finalist Colton Tollefsrud of Mabel-Canton, who hit 98 of 100 flying clay targets. He was one bird ahead of four shooters, each scoring 97: Houston’s Justin Riederer, Rushford-Peterson’s three-time national finalist Samual Finley, LeRoy-Ostrander’s Brayden Schaefer and Spring Grove’s three-time finalist Garrett Waldenberger. Kingsland’s two-time finalist Cameron Miner advanced with a 96 and Spring Grove’s three-time finalist Taylor Reinhardt with a 95. (Spring Grove’s Christian Bjerke also scored 95 but was eliminated with a tiebreaker.)
Reinhardt (SG), who had the lowest qualifying score of the Journal seven, had the highest score in the finals when she hit 98 of 100 birds to place 12th among 40 girl finalists. Finley (R-P) again scored 97 to place 113th among 361 boy finalists. Waldenberger (SG) hit 96 birds to place 166th and Miner (Kingsland) 95 targets to finish 207th.
Schaefer (L-O) and Riederer (Hou) each scored 93 in the finals. With the tiebreaker, Schaefer placed 287th and Riederer 292nd. Tollefsrud (M-C) hit 91 targets to place 324th among 361 finalists and 1,734 overall.
Journal area athletes not advancing past the first round, in order, were Christian Bjerke (SG 95), Mason Swenson (M-C 94), Zach Whalen (Chatfield 94), Kellan Slifka (Kingsland 94), Carter Hershberger (M-C 93), Shawn Swenson (M-C 93), Katrinda Whalen (M-C 93), Hunter Kelly (M-C 91), Tyler Turner (SG 89), Tristen Aarsvold (Kingsland 89), Roland Bjerke (SG 88) and Janessa Hershberger (M-C 85).
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