Clay Target team brings home a championship

I’ve been covering high school sports for nearly 30 years, but Saturday was definitely a first for me.

I attended the Minnesota State High School League Clay Target Championships at the Minneapolis Gun Club, which unknown to me until recently, is just 20 miles away, along the Prior Lake- Lakeville border. I talked to Dan Ring, a New Prague High School graduate who is the sports editor of the Waseca County News. He was covering New Richland- Hartland Ellendale-Geneva. He grew up in the Elko area and said while it was just a few miles from home, he never knew about the place.

Clay Targets is one of the newest activities offered by the league. They partnered two years ago with the Minnesota High School Clay Target League to sponsor the activity. The clay target league got its start in 2001with just three schools and 30 shooters. Today, there are more than 10,000 shooters registered in the sport through their schools, about a 60 percent increase from just two years ago.

This was the third MSHSL tournament. New Prague is one of just a handful of teams that has qualified for state all three years. Last year, the team finished in 10th place. The tournament squad included five shooters and two alternates. However, the New Prague team has more than 60 shooters. They practice twice a week, sometimes at the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club between New Prague and Prior Lake, and also at other venues in the area. Team members must complete a Minnesota DNR Firearms Safety course in order to compete. In talking with the team members Saturday, they seemed relaxed as they waited for their turn to shoot. I asked if any of them were in other sports, and only one, Ben Dietz, was. He has been on the varsity hockey team for the past two years, which makes him a two-sport state tournament athlete.

I was surprised to learn that there is not "warmup" period for the shooters. When the 9 a.m. start time began, competition began immediately, There were 10 shooting stations, each with three or four teams rotating (Thirty-eight teams qualified for state). Each competitor took 100 shots, which meant there were 19,000 rounds of ammunition fired off during the morning team competition…. and 19,000 clay targets launched.

The amazing thing about that number is the total number of targets that were hit. These young athletes were incredibly accurate. New Prague’s score of 480 meant that they hit the target at a 96 percent clip. I was talking to George Tupy, whose grandson, Jordan Stocker, was a member of the team. He asked how many of those targets I could hit. I explained that I hadn’t fired a 12 gauge shotgun since I was in high school, and while I might hit one or two out of 100, it would be purely by accident.

Clay Target is an all-inclusive sport. There were several female competitors, and they shot side by side with their male teammates. I didn’t see any, but I’m told that adapted athletes can also compete.

Watching these kids, I was impressed by their calm demeanor and business-like approach while shooting. The sport takes tremendous concentration keen eyesight and good hand-eye coordination.

Congratulations to Coach Paul Dietz and his team members, Ben Dietz, Woodrow Glazer, Isaac Simon, Parker Precht and Jordan Stocker, as well as alternates Kortney Novak and Tyler Bisek, for bringing home the state championship. Added congratulations to Ben Dietz, who placed second in the individual competition.

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