Dugger Union Clay Shooters have success at State Trap Championships

Monday, November 4, 2019
The Dugger Union Clay Shooters recently competed at a state contest with great results.
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New sports opportunity for area youth

This area of southern Indiana is blessed with many opportunities and venues for school sports teams. Those students, their parents, their schools, and their fan base provide year-round hours of competitive events. There is now a “new” sport being introduced into the mix which is designed for middle and high school age students (boys and girls).

Although established locally in 2015 with Dugger Union Clay Shooters (DUCS) for students, the game has been around in the sphere of competitive events for over 130 years. It is the sport of clay target shooting. The sport covers Trap, Skeet, and Sporting Clays. There are national sports affiliation groups representing each of these individual disciplines. The organizations designed specifically for youth/student participation is the SCHOLASTIC CLAY TARGET PROGRAM (SCTP) and ATA AIM.

Members of the ATA AIM State Champion team were Brier May, Cooper May, Samuel McCammon, Boe Monroe and Tanner Kellett.
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Presently, students from seven area schools plus students homeschooled are members of the program (Graysville, Carlisle, Sullivan, Shakamak, WRV, Linton, Dugger, plus home-schooled members).

These 20 to 25 students form into teams which receive weekly instruction, participate in practice, compete against each other in “home court” events and/or travel to state and national venues for formal events. While not drawing the attention of some school sports, several of the teams have won or placed very high in state shoots where the competition of each individual and teams were very competitive.

Recently, the Dugger Union Clay Shooters attended the 2019 SCTP Indiana State Championship at St. Joe Trap and Skeet Club. We had three full squads of five shooters and one single in his division. In the Rookie division individuals, Samual McCammon had the high honors as the State Champion with Boe Monroe placing third place. The Intermediate division consisting of Cale Phegley, Braxton Carrico, Tanner Kellett, Jesse Frink and Landon Wardenburg were 2nd place finishers. Landon Wardenburg also had 3rd place individual honors and was also HOA for the team. The team also had three squads attended the ATA AIM State Championship held at the Indiana Gun Club. At this shoot the Pre-Sub team had high honors as State Champions. Members of the ATA AIM State Champion team were Brier May, Cooper May, Samuel McCammon, Boe Monroe and Tanner Kellett. Landon Wardenburg was HOA for the team. Also, Matthew Eberhardt shot a 25 straight. Also shooting for the team were Keaton Schaefer, Luke Powers, Carver Eberhardt, Landon Wolfe, Dylan Jerrell, Jayden Dale, Dylan Wilkes and Dalton Wright. All shooters at both shoots did very well for being a young team, acting like seasoned veterans.

The Intermediate division consisting of Cale Phegley, Braxton Carrico, Tanner Kellett, Jesse Frink and Landon Wardenburg were 2nd place finishers.
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The sponsoring/governing body of the SCTP is the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation, which is also the official feeder program for USA Shooting, sponsors of the U.S. Olympic Shooting Team. SCTP operates in association with the Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) and the Academics Integrity & Marksmanship (AIM) program. This is an indepth program which receives support and funding from the Indiana Youth Shooting Sports Foundation, Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP), Scholastic Shooting Sport Foundation(SSSF), Midway USA Foundation, Larry and Brenda Potterfield, Friends of the NRA and various community business sponsors. This generous support allows the participants to have the necessary materials (targets, traps, shells etc.) to compete. Most shooters bring their own 12 or 20 gauge shotgun, but there are also guns provided by the instructors or others. Participants may also qualify for higher education academic scholarships as more colleges are starting shooting sports teams.

Team members receive extensive instruction in gun familiarity and safety, the use of eye safety glasses, hearing protection, the etiquette of the sport and sportsmanship itself. In the off season (hard winter), the students attend indoor instruction in reloading, ballistic characteristics, shooting technique, sportsmanship scenarios, event scoring and rules, various gun characticstics (point of impact, length of pull, recoil reduction, pump/semi-auto vs break- open operations, removable choke choices, selection of shooting glass color, etc.). This instruction is done by skilled and knowledgeable adults. These volunteers have many years of competitive shooting experience and are able to provide ALL the student requires to achieve success. Well known shooters, Mike May and Scott Stanton are the lead instructors with contributions by others.

The home grounds for our local area student shooters is at the former Triple H Gun Club located on Hwy 59 South of Linton. This excellent facility is now known as the Goosepond Lodge which is generously made available by new owner, Mark Bartlow. Our student shooters meet every week at 6:00 pm on Sunday evenings. For more information on the local shooting team can be found on the DUGGER UNION CLAY SHOOTERS-TEAM Facebook page or by contacting Tim Goldman at 812-887-4497. We continually welcome additional youth to participate. All boys AND GIRLS between 10 and 18 are encouraged to join. Your school participation is desired but NOT required for your membership. Also, SCTP and ATA AIM has divisions for shooters up to 23 years old.

Clay shooting is a sport you can enjoy for a lifetime. There are several gun clubs throughout the state that are in need of younger shooters to keep there ranges open, so this would be a great opportunity to start a youth shooting team at your club. Also, evryone is worried about their 2nd amendments right, so lets get busy and educate our youth on gun safety, marksmanship and get them involved in shooting sports. Thats how you protect our 2nd amendment right. The SCTP, ATA AIM and the participating schools invite all those interested or desiring to learn the sport to attend a practice session or contact Tim Goldman.

The bonus for youth in this sport is that there is no bench warmers, every student shoots 100 targets, which are scored in their age division.