Blooming Prairie Trap Team Wins Conference Title; NRHEG Places Second

Blooming Prairie's Blossoms (A) captured the title by placing three shooters among the top 10 in their conference. The NRHEG Panthers (4A) had six of the top eight shooters while settling for second place.

The five-week competitive season recently wrapped up for clay target shooting in Minnesota. Blooming Prairie edged Litchfield for the scoring title in their Class A conference standings. Karson Vigeland of Blooming Prairie had the third-highest scoring average in the conference at 21.3 out of 25 targets per round. Teammate Zachary Sisler (20) was ninth. Jon Hatch was 10th (19.9). Carissa Easton was second among female shooters with 17. Boys and girls compete together, but the state clay shooting league posts standings individually. Due to various summer conflicts, Blooming Prairie will not be sending any shooters to the upcoming state meet in Alexandria.

NRHEG competes in Class 4A. The Panthers finished second behind McGregor-Aitkin-Cromwell in the standings. The Panthers' Frank Altrichter had the second-highest average with 23.1. Tyler Raimann, Colin Christenson, Kyle Bartz, Brett Kubiatowicz and Noah Lund all averaged 22-plus and were fourth through eighth in the final standings.

Medford is a Class AA team and landed fourth in their conference out of eight teams. The top Tiger shooters included Nick Meixner in second place with a 23.3 average, Zach Gedicke in fourth with 23, and Tate Romnes in fifth with 22.8. Cierra Duchene was fourth among the girls with an 18.8 average.

Triton is also a AA team. Their top individual place finisher was Samantha Newman at 14.1, good enough for 12th place.

Conferences are set up based on the number of shooters on a team, not geographically. Competition scores are entered online to be compared to other teams in each conference. About 300 Minnesota schools sponsoring trap shooting are divided into six classes.

All teams are eligible for a state tournament held in Alexandria June 11-16. More than 5,000 shooters are entered for this year's event. The top teams and individuals will qualify for the Minnesota State High School League tournament June 20 in Prior Lake. Minnesota is the first state to have a high school league-sponsored state tournament for trap shooting.