My first trap shooting competition~By Kyle

Hi Everyone! Today I had my first official trap shooting competition! The competition was out in Woodland, and fifty different shooters came from about six or seven school districts. It was a lot of fun! So how did I do? Well, pretty well for my first go at competitive shooting! There were four different shooting disciplines at the trap meet: 16 yard trap, 22 yard trap, doubles (two clay pigeons at once), and 16 yard continentals. My teammates and I were all first-year shooters, so we got to be in a different division then the "veterans".

  My scores, in order of the disciplines I shot first:

Doubles:        14 of 30
Continentals: 18 of 25
16 yard trap:  19 of 25
22 yard trap:  16 of 25

so overall, not a very bad day! I definitely have room for improvement on doubles, but this was only my second time shooting doubles. Also, it was my FIRST time shooting continentals, so I was very happy with my 18 score. What is continental trap? Well, it differs from normal trap in that the clay pigeons can fly in many more angles and at a faster speed; the birds can go much higher or lower than the birds flung from regular trap. This adds a whole new level to shooting since you don't know where the bird will be going.

I stuck around for the awards, not expecting anything, but to my surprise, my name was called for a shoot-off in the continental discipline with three other shooters. Turns out, I was tied with three other shooters for second place in that discipline. The ten round shoot-off was pretty intense (and nerve racking!), for though I didn't know it at the time, my two other opponents and I were shooting for second, third, and fourth place, respectively. Fourth place does not receive a medal. I actually was able to keep myself fairly calm during the shoot-off and won it, out shooting my opponents by a score of 8 of 10, 7 of 10, and 6 of 10. So I brought home a second place medal. It went right down to the wire, and I learned later that the shooter I beat by one got the second best overall score in the tournament!  Not bad for my first time shooting continentals, huh?

My teammate, Nick, also brought home a first place medal in the doubles discipline--Good job, buddy!--so the Mossyrock team, all three of us (most teams had 7-11 shooters), were well represented in the awards. Our town may be small, but I will always be proud to be one of the five-hundred faithful Mossyrockians! :0)

 The next shoot is in April, so let's hope that I learn from this competition and can improve my scores. Trap shooting has been really fun (Thanks for getting me hooked on it, Richie!), and it is a great chance to be a witness to my teammates! Pray that I will get a chance to share the Good News with them some time, for though they are very nice guys, I am not sure where they are spiritually.

Well, I better get to bed, as we loose an hour of sleep tonight. Goodnight, folks!