Holliday hits 25 as East Clinton Clay Target club team opens season

0

The East Clinton Clay Target Club team has started its fifth spring season competing in skeet, trap and 5-stand.

The East Clinton team competes against other high school clubs through the Ohio State High School Clay Target League, a division of the USA Clay Target League. East Clinton formed its club in Spring 2019.

During the first week of competition this season, East Clinton’s Ben Holliday shot a perfect skeet round of 25 out of 25. The league advocates safety first, followed by enjoyment of the sport and then marksmanship.

East Clinton has a five-person skeet team, 10-person trap team and three-person 5-stand team. Trap is a clay target game of 25 targets with five participants at a time. Each participant has the opportunity to break five targets at each of five stations. Stations are placed nine feet apart in a line 16 yards behind a clay target throwing machine. The machine is set to randomly thrown five different target presentations in front of each participant. It is a challenging yet fun activity.

Skeet also is 25 targets with participants moving between eight different stations. There are two clay target throwing machines launching targets that cross the eight stations allowing for single and double targets to be hit.

The 5-stand competition is new this season. It consists of 25 targets thrown from eight different machines. Participants rotate between five different stations with five targets thrown per station. Each station consists of one single, one report pair and one true pair of targets.

Financial support for the club team comes from Clinton-Highland Pheasants Forever and the Ohio Gun Collectors Association combined with the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation.

Team members this year include:

Trap: Austin Burden, Parker Dixon, Preston Dixon, Clayton Ferguson, Madi Frazer, Xavier Keller, Colt Riehle, Aaron Rolfe, Gabe Stewart and Braxton Vanzant. Coaches are Tim Woods and Steve Sharp.

Skeet: Madi Frazer, Ben Gates, Nick Gates, Ben Holliday (shooting on the team through a cooperative agreement with Little Miami High School), Alex Roe (shooting on the team through a cooperative agreement with Bellbrook Middle School). Coach is Bruce Warren.

5-Stand: Ben Holliday, Colt Riehle, Aaron Rolfe. Coach and club coordinator is Cindy Warren.

Ohio State High School Clay Target League is a virtual league allowing high schools to participate all over the state without traveling from school to school. All competitions occur on a range close to the school. East Clinton utilizes the Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association for all club activities.

Scoring is based on two 25-target rounds of either skeet, trap or 5-stand. All scores are submitted via a secured scoring website where they are calculated and posted at the end of each week.

The high schools participating in East Clinton’s conference in Ohio in trap are Tuscarawas Valley (currently in first place), Big Walnut (second) Huntington (third), East Clinton (fourth ), Colonel Crawford (fifth) and Athens (sixth). Skeet teams include Gallia Academy (first), North Ridgeville (second), Olentangy Liberty (third) and East Clinton (fourth). 5-Stand is still growing and at this time remains an individual competition at a national level.

No posts to display