Trap shooting has been around for centuries and now it has come to St. Croix Central High School. Not only with the 3rd annual SCC Football Trap Shoot fundraiser on May 10th at the River Falls Sportsmen’s Club but now SCC High School has its very own first Trap Shooting Team. The man responsible for getting this started is Bill Emery, FFA Advisor and SCC High School Teacher who has wanted a trap s
hooting team for a long time.
“Haven’t had one out of this school because we haven’t had enough interest mostly on the adult end of it to really pull together a team. That changed this year, so I’m pretty excited about that,” said Emery. The change came in the form of a long time SCC volunteer and father of a SCC 10th grader, Lou Moegenburg, who got to know some of his athletics while volunteering at the elementary school when they were in kindergarten. His son Hunter, was interested in the sport and volunteered his dad.
“Right now we have two seniors, two juniors, one sophomore and seven freshman. So we’ve got a really young group,” said Coach Moegenburg. “Our kids are really pretty good, they’re pretty good kids and pretty good shooters.”
The SCC Trap Shooting team consists of 12 students and 5 coaches; Austin Boettcher, Brett Eckman, Brian Gibb, Chase Hollembeak, Luke Jensen, Alec Lamberty, Isaac Larson, Hunter Moegenburg, Tucker Nauss, Jake Nyhagen, Cole Refsnider, and Samantha Weber. The parent coaches are Greg Boettcher, Ed Gibb, Jeremy Nauss, and Steve Weber.
“I’m really thankful for Lou for taking on the task as head coach, great effort on that,” said Emery. Because this is the first year for the team at SCC, Moegenburg says not all the details have been fully worked out yet. Emery is working on establishing criteria to allow trap shoot team members the ability to earn a “letter” for the sport. Moegenburg is grateful to have support from former SCC graduate, Cory Brathal who is the current State Director at the USA High School Clay Target League during this inaugural year.
“I call him with questions, he’s a good contact,” said Moegenburg. “He’s been around the State promoting this, he’s super energetic.”
Brathal has been out promoting because it is also the first year for the Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League (WSHSCTL), which is a spin off of the league in Minnesota and part of the USA High School Clay Target League.
“This is the inaugural season, even in the State, it’s pretty cool to be part of that,” said Emery. The USA High School Clay Target League is a non-profit corporation and operates the Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League as the independent provider of shooting sports as an extracurricular co-ed activity to high schools for students who have their Fi****ms Safety Certification. They believe that safe and responsible handling and storage of fi****ms and ammunition is the first priority.
“Safety, fun and marksmanship,” said Moengenburg. “We’re kind of following in the shadows of Minnesota and they have not had one firearm incident since they started. So I told our kids, you know in competition, athletes, everybody wants to be #1, except we don’t want #1, we want zero.”
Moegenburg says Brathal thinks Wisconsin is going to follow Minnesota or possibly pass it up in interest of this new High School sport. Since it’s inception, the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League has experienced phenomenal growth, from three teams and 30 athletes in 2008 to 185 teams and 6,100 athletes this spring. The League received many requests to bring this popular activity to neighboring states, now including Wisconsin. Moegenburg is thankful they found the River Falls Sportsmen’s Club to use as their home shooting range. He credits parent coach Ed Gibb for many things, partly for his connection to the club. Gibb has been a member for many years and helped facilitate the use of the shooting range.
“I would say he’s our ‘super coach’ because he’s the guy who has been doing this for a long time, he knows the in and outs of it,” said Moegenburg. Moegenburg is glad they got into RFSC when they did.
“They are really, really good to us, you couldn’t ask for a better partner,” said Coach Moegenburg. “It’s really exciting and I think it’s (Wisconsin High School Trap Shooting) going to expand at an exponential rate. And we’re glad that we got into a shooting range now because a year from now, 2 years from now, it’s going to be hard to find a range.”
During this inaugural year for the Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League, more than 100 students athletes representing six high school trap teams are participating in the 2014 Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League’s spring season. High school teams are assigned conferences based on a similar number of team members. SCC is in Conference 2A with only one other school, Potosi High School. Conference 1A consists of Elmwood , Frederic, Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau and St. Croix Falls High Schools. All shooters and teams are invited to the State Tournament on June 13 at the WTA Shooting complex in Nekoosa WI. Potosi High School is about 230 miles from SCC near Platteville in the southwest corner of the state, however with High School Trap Shooting there is no traveling to other schools. Every school shoots at their “home” location, which for SCC is the River Falls Sportmen’s Club. Each week after competition one of the coaches enters each shooter’s scores into the WSHSCTL website. There the shooters can log in to see how they compared to the other participants in the league. Not only is travel not a concern but athletics can also compete in other sports along with Trap Shooting. Shooters don’t have to compete at the same time as their team, they can shoot by themselves with a coach either on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
“We have two kids in baseball and two in golf. Baseball plays on Thursdays so they shoot on Wednesday instead,” said Moegenburg. The cost is of Trap Shooting is relatively inexpensive compared to football or hockey. Approximately $250 per season depending on how much ammunition is used. Gregerson in Baldwin offers discounted ammunition to SCC shooters and RFSC supplies all the clay targets for SCC. Moegenburg states that you don’t have to be a jock to be good at Trap Shooting. The physically challenged are accepted. Shooting sports can accommodate student athletes who have a physical disability or limited mobility.
“You don’t have to be a big jock, you don’t have to be 6’4’’ and 300 pounds, you don’t have to a have a big skill set,” said Moegenburg. “Now you’ve got another sporting activity where you don’t need all those physical skills. Hand-eye coordination absolutely.”
Moegenburg talked about the strict 2-rule system.
“When a shooter is on the line and doing something that’s inappropriate, then we call the range officer (one of the coaches). We look for any kind of discrepancies that are occurring, they don’t have their glasses on, they don’t have their earplugs in, they call a halt. We can, if it’s a big violation, pull them off the line and get on the phone and call mom and dad to come pick them up. #1, if it happens again they’re done for the season,” said Moegenburg. “Because you don’t want to mess with a 12-gauge shotgun.”
Interested individuals and families are encouraged to attend this Saturday’s Football Trap Shoot Fundraiser at the River Falls Sportsmen’s Club to see first hand what Trap Shooting is all about. High School practice and competition trap shooting is a very well thought out process where safety is the number one concern. A practice or competition event will consist of shooting two 25-target rounds for a total of 50 targets from the 16-yard station. Up to 5 shooters will occupy the stations on a trap field. Upon a “start” command from the scorekeeper, each shooter, in turn will: take proper shooting position, load one shell, close the gun, clearly call “pull” or some other command for the target, shoot at the target, (scorekeeper does not comment when a target is hit), scorekeeper will say “Lost” out loud when a target is missed, discharge empty shell, wait for next turn. Shooters then rotate to the next station. After the event is completed, the coach submits all athletes’ scores to the League. All scores are calculated and published on their website. Trapshooting is one of the three major sports of competitive clay target shooting sports with a shotgun. The other primary shooting sports are s***t shooting and sporting clays. Trap shooting, the target are launched from a single “House”, S***t shooting from two “Houses”, and Sporting Clays from many launch points. Trapshooting is enjoyed through out the world’s countries and has been a sport since the late 18th century when real birds were used. Birds were placed in traps, which were then released. Artificial “birds” (clay targets) were introduced in the late 1800’s. Trapshooting is also an Olympic sport. In the 2013 Summer Olympics, Kim Rhode became the first American ever to win Olympic medals in five consecutive Olympic Games in an individual sport. All League events occur at a shooting range that offers the proper trapshooting field that includes shooting stations and trap house. There are no guns allowed on school property, all practices and competitions are always located at a shooting range. FFA, RFSC and the WSHSCSL all have insurance coverage for their members and the SCC Trap Shooting team therefore there is no liability to the SCC School District.
