By PAUL DAVIS
Outdoors Editor
LINN CREEK, Mo. -- The pressure of competing against 225 other shooters in Saturday's Missouri Scholastic Clay Target Program championship event wasn't enough to foil the effort of Poplar Bluff Junior High School's trap team, which came away with the win in the Open Division.
"They've been working hard, and it paid off," said coach Josh Wesemann, who noted he wasn't surprised at the results. "Going from camp in May, and seeing the difference in their scores in such a short time ..."
The junior high squad, consisting of Kason Henderson, Garret Cooper, Franklin Davidson, Austin Stoner and Walker Ray, is consistent, Wesemann said.
"They listen well and implement what you tell them," he said.
One of the best parts about the squad, Wesemann said, is many are first-year shooters and will only improve with time.
Despite the pressure of the big stage during Saturday's state shoot, the squad scored 920 out of 1,000 clay birds.
"We were all doing good," said Henderson, "and I was nervous because I didn't want to start screwing up."
Davidson described the event as "stressful."
"I was scared I was going to miss that last one," he said.
During the event, Davidson did score his first perfect round in competition.
"We all finished with a score of 180 or above," added Cooper.
"I thought the whole team did good," said Ray. "I felt great, and I felt our whole team had accomplished something."
The team's next event will be the Missouri AIM Championships, back at Linn Creek on July 1.
Practicing four hours weekly, the team is preparing as much as it can.
"I'm shooting over 1,000 rounds in the next two weeks," said Davidson of his schedule.
With the win behind them, the squad now looks forward to getting even better.
"My goal is to shoot two 25s every shoot," said Henderson, who is a first-year participant.
Ray, in his second year, and Cooper, another first-year shooter, share a similar goal of shooting two perfect rounds in a row.
Stoner, also in his first year of competition, hopes to "keep shooting over 90 in every competition."
Davidson, who is competing in his second season, has an even loftier goal.
"I want to come in first place in the individual competition," he said.
Wesemann also is looking forward to the AIM shoot.
"I'm pretty optimistic regarding AIM," he said. "There is no open division at AIM (which, by the way, also includes high school-aged shooters), so they'll be strictly scored against other junior high-aged kids, and thinking back on the scores of junior high squads that were at the SCTP shoot, I'm pretty sure our boys are shooting as good, if not a little better."