Trap Shooting is probably the only sport where you can’t bring the equipment to participate in the sport on to school grounds.  Yet, it is the fastest growing high school sport in Minnesota, by nearly doubling in size from last season.  The Orono High School Trap Shooting team, for example, started with just 20 kids, and in the fourth season, is now at 40 participants, with a waiting list that is growing by the day.  The overall growth of Trap Shooting in Minnesota since 2010 is up 341%, over ten times more growth than the next closest sport, which was girls lacrosse at 31% according an MSHSL study done this year.

One of the biggest points that the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League makes on their website is that Trap Shooting does more than just give kids a good time and another sport to do.  It really teaches them ethics and they have a great responsibility by having a firearm with them.  A Sophomore at OHS, Sam Personius backed this up by saying, “I think that trap teaches kids a lot more than other sports. You learn to be more aware and think about how what you do affects things. This is because you when you have a firearm things you do are permanent.”

The format of a Trap Meet is as follows:  You have a squad that you are assigned to from your team.  Then depending upon the tournament you will shoot two rounds at a time, in each round there are 25 targets thrown.  Then you usually take a break and go back out and shoot another two rounds.  This totals 100 targets thrown, then the scores are taken out of 100.  If there is a tie, there is a sudden death shootout, which determines the winner.

The records from state the past two years show that high school students in Minn. can shoot very well.  There were over 15 people who shot in the 95 plus range out of 100 from each of the past two years.

With the rapid growth of Trap, the shooting ranges are struggling to keep up with the demand for range time, which leaves the future of the sport in a bit of a stale mate with growth.  Personius said, “Hopefully the rapid growth will spur the opening of some new ranges and then we can grow the sport more.”

Woody Hust

Sports Editor for The Spartan Speaks