Day 168 - Pride abounds on the MWHS Trap Team!

Today's post is from MWHS Trap Team Head Coach Jeff Hanratty

This spring marked our second season as an official sport at MWHS! We have had approximately 30 students come out for trap in each of the past two seasons, and it’s a resounding success!

Some background -– trap is a shooting game where you attempt to hit a 4” clay target hurled at high speed through the sky with a shotgun shell containing about 450 little pellets at a distance of 25-30 yards. Shooters attempt this 25 times from 5 different shooting stations per round. Sounds easy right? It is not, however, some of our MWHS students have gotten pretty good at it! In fact, we had almost one-half of our team average over 19 out of 25 – placing them at the varsity level according to the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League. Our best shooter this Spring was 8th grader John Koch averaging 22.70 and finishing #63 out of 6100 students (185 teams) in the entire state! Also, the White Hawks finished second in our conference! That is an awesome accomplishment and a source of #MWHSPride.

We are really excited how our community has embraced the sport. In current times, the words “school” and “guns” doesn’t go over very well with some people. However, the sport has had zero incidents since its inception and the students have shown the utmost respect for the rules. Trap is the fastest growing sport in the state, in fact, Governor Dayton is kicking off the State Championship event this weekend in Alexandria, MN. MWHS will be sending a team up there to shoot on Saturday. Winning teams from that event will earn the right to compete in the Minnesota State High School League tournament on June 14. Minnesota is the only state in the country where the high school league has recognized trap as a varsity sport and awards a state champion.

Thanks for supporting our team. I am amazed at the number of people who have stopped me to ask about the team. Many voice regret that they (or their kids) didn’t have the chance to participate in trap when they were in high school! We have room on the team so please consider giving it a try! We especially would like to see more girls get involved. We shoot at the Minnetonka Sportsmen’s Club which is west of Mound. I am proud to be associated with such a supportive community where all kids have a “shot” at doing something big!

2014 MWHS Trap Team

If you have a story that you would like to share, please email mwhspride@277apps.org for more information! We would love to hear from you!