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2018 SCTP Regional Championship Dates and Locations

Save the date for the 2018 Scholastic Clay Target Program Regional Championships! Regional events are a great way for SCTP teams to participate and compete with teams from all across the country. Make plans now to participate in one or more events for fun, camaraderie and some great prizes!

Pre-registration for each event will be available through the SSSF SHOT system as the event dates draw closer.

Pheasants Forever’s 2018 Shooting Sports Invitational

Inviting all coaches & shooting sports athletes! Join Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever for a training day at the range…

Shooting Sports Invitational

February 17, 2018 • 11:30am – 5pm

Are you tough enough to brave the cold? If you are, join us at Hunters Pointe near Humboldt, SD during Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic for the 2018 Shooting Sports Invitational. We hope to provide you with hands on training and resources to help improve you and your team. We will be hosting “on range” training sessions to help with your mental game, pre-season preparation, funding, and coaching.

New this year, we will be on the range live firing guns under the instruction of experts. Dave Miller of CZUSA will be teaching on the Sporting Clays Range. Mark and Sally Stevens of the Minnesota Youth Shotgun Association will be teaching on the Trap Range, and Rick Leach of the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation will be leading those interested on the Pistol and Rifle Range showcasing the Scholastic Action Shooting Program. Conservation and its relationship with shooting sports will also be a discussed on each range.

Your team will also earn an extra $1,500 for your MidwayUSA Endowment account by attending the training and signing up for a Special PF/QF MidwayUSA Foundation fundraising package. Register today as spaces are very limited and make plans to learn from industry professionals!

Download complete details and pre-registration information here…

Beyond the Clays – The 2017 SSSF Championships

Article Courtesy Michael Sabbeth and Fiocchi USA. Photo credit to Carla Jennings Photography.

“We are looking at the future,” Chris Hodgdon said as his hand swept like a conductor’s baton in an arc toward the line of trap fields. Hundreds of young shooters were pulverizing clay targets, laughing and speaking words of support to their teammates. We were at the 2017 Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) National Championships sponsored by the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation. The Cardinal Trap Shooting Facility in Marengo, Ohio, developed through the magnanimity of the Fishburn family, hosted the event.

Competitive shooters, ages 8 to 23 from 32 states, competed for national titles in the shotgun disciplines of American Trap, Handicap Trap, Bunker Trap, Trap Doubles, Skeet, Skeet Doubles and Sporting Clays. Pistol and rifle competitors competed for steel shooting titles in Rimfire Pistol, Centerfire Pistol, Iron Sight Rifle and Optics Rifle divisions. About 2,700 athletes on 255 teams boasted 6,400 event entries. Thirty-three states were represented and an estimated 1.26 million shots were fired in the competition events! One hundred and five SCTP student athletes will receive scholarships totaling $83,000.

Prior to SSSF, many students never or had only rarely shot a gun. Feeder organizations such as 4H and the Boy Scouts gave them opportunities to try. Many parents asked SSSF to help their children get involved in shooting. The children loved the sports, become members and gained deeper knowledge about shooting.

I learned many teams were created by the desire of a parent to enable their child to shoot responsibly and routinely. Young shooters told me the attractions of these sports: they love to shoot, they value opportunities to improve, they welcome challenges, they can be competitive or just have fun, and, unlike most sports, they can participate throughout their lives.

The vast property was lush and green with stands of hardwoods and cornfields, the earth’s fragrance more alluring than the finest perfumes. The range was a beehive of activity. Electric carts darted about like bugs on a pond and hundreds of shooters carried shotguns as nonchalantly as if holding bags of popcorn. Anna Van Nostrand, instructor and CZ representative, crafted a beautiful insightful phrase: “This is an environment of positivity.”

I arrived on Wednesday, the CZ-USA recognition day. Dave Miller, CZ’s shotgun manager and exhibition shooter, was my host. Dave shot his way into the Guinness Book of Records by breaking 3,653 clays in 60 minutes! CZ has been a Platinum sponsor of this event for five years. Dave tutored me on the sporting clays, make-or-break and crazy-quail disciplines. He even taught me to break targets shooting from my hip!

These programs require great effort. Ben Berka, President/Executive Director of SSSF, and Louise Terry, Chairman of the SSSF Board, told of the thousands of hours of organizing the event and the engagement of hundreds of volunteers. But it’s all worth it, they said. The youngsters are learning skills, get outside away from iPhones and, most significantly, develop a dedication to the American heritage and an appreciation for individual liberty. “The SSSF is about more than just breaking pieces of clay,” Louise told me.

Support for SSSF signifies a commitment to shooting’s future. Companies such as CZ-USA, Hodgdon Powder and Fiocchi USA routinely make substantial financial commitments. Observing this championship, I am comforted that the future of shooting looks bright indeed.

Michael Sabbeth is a lawyer and writer in Denver, Colorado. Please see his book The Good, The Bad & The Difference: How to Talk with Children About Values. Now in an eBook, available at Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/c5flmmu

Over 1,000 SCTP Athletes Compete In Last Competitor Standing

One of the highlights of Nationals week for SCTP athletes is the opportunity to compete in a massive Last Competitor Standing (i.e. “Annie Oakley”) event that gives them the opportunity to win guns, gear, and even a scholarship. In this miss-and-out fun competition, up to 30 athletes per trap field try to eliminate each other by capitalizing on the previous competitor’s misses. Over 500 athletes competed each evening.

The event has two components on each of two nights: a competition for anyone who wishes to compete, with men’s and ladies winners taking home guns and other prizes, followed by a competition just for 2017 graduating seniors who competed for $1,000 scholarships presented by the NRA.

Last Competitor Standing – Wednesday

LADIES
Victoria Hendrix AZ Ben Avery
Sarah Schwacker WI Waterford Wolverines
Molly Olson WI Flyway Clay Slayers
Jessica Strasser WI Waterford Wolverines
Kiera Wood WI Hudson Raiders
Mikaela Leach WI Ozaukee Scholastic Shooting
Morgan Clark WI Flyway Clay Slayers
Zoe Goodwin KY Northern Kentucky Top Guns

MEN
Austin Jacob OH Greene County F&G
Andrew Troje IA North Scott Trap Team
Riley Hasler WI Waterford Wolverines
Thomas Keeshan IA North Scott Trap Team
Blake Conrad MN Lakers Trap Team
Eyan Marx WI Flyway Clayslayers
Aaron Copelan GA Lake Oconee Shotgun Team
Jordan Persinger WI Hudson Raiders

COLLEGE
Tyler Bong WI Flyway Clayslayers
Brennan Kamer KY Northern Kentucky STC

Ladies NRA $1,000 Scholarship
Sarah Villarreal NE Marian High School

Mens NRA $1,000 Scholarship
Austin Jacob OH Greene County F&G

Last Competitor Standing – Friday
LADIES
Erin Lautzenheiser OH North Lawrence Claybusters
Harley Graves TN T-County Claybusters
Lauren Hartwein MO Gateway Claybusters
Chloe Uhlenhake WI BHS Demons
Sabrina Peterson IL St. Charles Shot Crew
Grace Marlen MO Team Henges
Morgan Clark WI Flyway Clayslayers
Kaylinn Wilken WI BHS Demons

MENS
Tyler Regner WI BHS Demons
Brian Baca CO Rocky Mountain Claybusters
Zachary Hanson WI Central Falcons
William Browning IA North Lawrence Claybusters
Josh Muellenbach WI BHS Demons
Hunter Block IA North Scott Trap Team
Jack Schoepke WI BHS Demons
Thomas Keeshan IA North Scott Trap Team

COLLEGE
Danielle Greene PA Evans City
Taya Bower MI Straight Shooters

Ladies NRA $1,000 Scholarship
Chloe Sterner PA Mason Dixon Claybusters

Mens NRA $1,000 Scholarship
Hunter Conrad WI Central Falcons

Annie Get Your Gun, You Too Taylor

SSSF-Thu-Taylor-1Participation by women – in this case perhaps girls – here in at the SCTP and SASP National Championships is, well, high. Girls account for nearly 1 in every 5 shooters with 19.3% of the total. By sport the numbers are more interesting.

In the shotgun sports of SCTP the girls make up 17.7% of the shooters. But when it comes to the pistol and rifle sports of SASP, girls are now 30.7% of the total shooters.

2016 Gender Participation

One of those girls helping to drive up participation is 11-year-old Taylor Diener of the Union Grove Shooting Club in Wisconsin.

Taylor started shooting trap two years ago and just this past March made the leap into rimfire rifle competition in preparation for this year’s SASP Nationals. On the range she’s hard to miss, unless of course she’s surrounded by a cluster of adults who all tower over her. Cute and confident she seems totally unfazed by either the flood of attention given to young new shooters like her or the pressure of competing at the national level.

Even when her rifle magazine has a feeding issue, a world ending disaster in the minds of many competitive shooters racing the timer, Taylor calmly keeps working the action and pulling the trigger.

A lot of the young shooters, and several of the young girls shooting, demonstrate this same poise under pressure. And after, rather than voice any frustration or disappointment, Taylor focuses on the future, as in next year when she plans to add doubles trap, maybe sporting clays and even rimfire pistol to her shooting schedule.

No wonder participation by girls – and of course women – continues to grow in the shooting sports.

Tennessee Beats Wisconsin…

When it comes to who has the largest number of shooters here at the 2016 Scholastic Clay Target Program National Championships, the Volunteer State is once again dominant. This year Tennessee accounts for 23% of all those competing in the shotgun sports.

SSSF-16 Top 5 SCTP States

First!

SSSF-Blog-First-1Add the name Jacob McInturff to the history books of the Cardinal Center in Marengo, Ohio. The 18-year-old shooter from Johnson City, Tennessee, had not broken 100 straight in skeet in a few years but that didn’t seem to phase him as he took to the brand new skeet fields and ran not just 100, but 200 straight, ensuring his place in the history books as the first shooter to do so here at the facility.

Earlier in the competition Raymond Nagro of Gurnee, Illinois left his own mark as he claimed the honor of being the first shooter to run 100 straight.

McInturff is here with the Unaka Shooters and back home is a regular on the skeet fields at the Unaka Rod & Gun Club where is he frequently outguns his elders. They sometimes resort to a little good humored gamesmanship to get in McInturff’s head, hoping to throw him off his game. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, the young shooter admits, he gives as good as he gets.

When it comes to head-to-head competition club members might not be pulling for McInturff to win, but when it comes to representing the club in the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP), there is no mistaking their support.

“They’ve been very good to the team,” says Mark McInturff who is both Jacob’s father and the team’s coach.

When the senior McInturff talks about the Unaka Rod & Gun Club it’s clear how much he and the team appreciate the support they get. It’s support he hopes to repay with future leaders. McInturff  sees SCTP not simply as a youth shooting program but also as a training ground to develop and prepare young men and women to someday take over the management of their home shooting clubs, and eventually return to the SCTP Nationals with new shooters and new teams.

This long term view probably explains why the current Unaka Rod & Gun Club president jokingly refers to Jacob as the ‘future club president.’

For now though, he’s just the guy sitting atop the leader board with the only perfect 200 score in skeet…and he’s OK with it staying that way through the rest of the championship.

Coaches Earn Credentials During the Wisconsin NRA Level 1 Coaches Class

Nineteenimage004 (1) coaches earned their NRA coaching credentials during the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Level 1 Coaches Class hosted by the Daniel Boone Conservation League in Wisconsin on February 6-7, 2016. The Shooting Coach Program is a cooperative effort of the NRA, USA Shooting, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program.  The NRA Level 1 Pistol Coaches Class now includes action shooting as one of the disciplines.  The Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) is the model for action shooting.

The additional ccoach classoaches were needed to address the huge growth several of the Wisconsin teams have experienced since last year.  One team actually has grown from 15 last year to 50 this year and that growth was seen even before the new rifle program was announced.  Congratulations new coaches and good luck on a successful season with your athletes.

The next pistol coaches’ class on the schedule is in Plymouth, Michigan, April 2 & 3, 2016.  Are you looking to host a coaches’ class in your area? Contact SASP Director of Development Rick Leach at rleach@sssfonline.com.

See, Download & Share Photos from 2015 Nationals

Nationals_cover

Our collection of photos from the SCTP-SPP National Team Championships in Sparta and SCTP National Championships for International Disciplines in Colorado Springs have now been assembled on our Flickr page and are available for you to view, download, print, and share.


Click here to see our 2015 Nationals photos on Flickr


Even if you haven’t used Flickr before, you’ll probably find it pretty intuitive once you poke around a bit. However, here are a few notes to speed up the learning curve:

    The album will open to a collection of images on one page. If you want to look at an image in full-frame or to share or download it, just click on the image to open it.

    With any image opened, look for these icons in the lower right corner:

    Flickr icons

    If you wish to download the image, click on the icon on the right, the “down” arrow. What you’re seeing on the page will usually be a much smaller version of the image, with several larger sizes available to be downloaded. You’ll see some options:

    Flickr image sizes

    Just choose what you want. For a social media icon – or postage stamp – you might choose the 150×150 option. For a large print, go with the largest available size. To submit to your newspaper, download the largest available size to allow them to re-size it as needed.

    If you want to share the image in social media, click on the center icon, the “right” arrow, and again you’ll have options and some choices to make:

    Flickr share

    For most purposes, such as sharing on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll need to select “Link” as the Code option. If you want to embed the photo into your blog or website, you can choose “HTML.” When that is the case, you will also have a choice of sizes.

If you choose to share images on social media (yes, do!), please continue to use the event hashtag, #SSSF2015.


Go to our Flickr page.


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