BVHS adds clay target league as club sport

Kyle Narum considers himself a pretty good shot with a gun in hand, so when Narum, who will be a senior at Brandon Valley High School this fall, first learned about a trap shooting league for high schoolers such as himself, he knew what he had to do: he needed to organize a club team at Brandon Valley.

“I’ve been shooting trap for about six years now with my grandpa and my stepdad,” he explains, “and everyone had been asking me about it, why I wasn’t shooting trap for school. I didn’t know anything about it, so I looked it up online and found that it’s a national organization.”

Although the trap shooting league is considered a club sport, just as baseball is at Brandon Valley, Narum knew it was important to initially gain the approval of principals Dr. Gregg Talcott and Mark Schlekeway.

“They said I was good to go, but I had to find a teacher to be the coach,” he said.

Getting a teacher to coach the team came easy, too, Narum said.

“I approached Mr. (Justin) Lovrien, because I knew he has a passion for the outdoors,” he said.

Lovrien admits he was easily sold on the idea of the program and taking on the role of coach.

“I knew some of the kids that were asking about it weren’t involved with that many other activities and I viewed it as a lot different than a lot of the activities we have,” he said. “And it was much more successful that I thought it would be because the kids were really dedicated,” he said.

With the green light to proceed and a coach secured, Naru’s next need was teammates.

And they came easily, too.

“A lot of my friends are the outdoorsy type, and we like to go hunting and stuff like that,” he said. “But there were quite a few that didn’t join because it was the first year for it, so we hope to have a lot more next year.”

With a coach and team members secured, Narum still had work to do to make it affordable for the student-athletes. So next he pounded the pavement, seeking sponsorships from area businesses, which ultimately covered the team’s weekly trap shooting fees at the Garretson Gun Club, where the Lynx club team practices and competes.

“I had a lot of great sponsors help out so the students don’t have to pay a dime to compete,” he said, noting the near $4,000 he collected.

Evan Rosenbaum and Alex Johnson, who will also be seniors at Brandon Valley High this fall, joined the club team for their simple love of the sport.

“I love just shooting trap,” Rosenbaum said. “I used to do it at my old place and I like competing against it.”

“I’ve shot trap for a few years now and I’ve hunted ever since I was little kid, so just shooting trap comes natural,” says Johnson, who considers himself a “decent” shot.

“Right now, I’m top 10, but that might change today,” he said in mid-May.

Johnson admits to the pressure a top 10 ranking presents but said, “You just kind of forget about that when you’re shooting, and you just shoot.”

Lovrien said he saw significant improvement in the skill levels of the student-athletes from the start of the eight-week season to the end.

“We had some kids that didn’t have experience that more than doubled their score from when they started, and other ones that started off shooting very good and showed improvement,” he said.  

While both boys and girls can compete in the club sport, the Lynx were only represented by boys this season.

“We’re certainly hoping to change that,” Lovrien said. “This year it was a boy that won state, and last year it was a girl that won state, and that’s the cool thing about it is that it’s open to boys and girls.”

The league’s co-ed and adaptive nature are key attractions to high schools in South Dakota. The league is fully Title IX compliant with both male and female athletes competing on the same team. Additionally, it’s an “adaptive” sport, which allows students with physical disabilities to take part. “We take pride in that athletes of all types are able to participate in clay target shooting,” said John Nelson, vice president of the South Dakota State High School Clay Trap League. “Our True Team® scoring system is also designed so that everyone can compete, not just the top scorers on a team.”

The Lynx, who finished second to Mitchell in their conference, wrapped up their inaugural season at the June 10 state tournament in Aberdeen, where they claimed eighth place, two placings better than Mitchell.

The conferences are determined by team size rather than geographic location for fair competition.

Johnson believes the Lynx likely surprised some of the competition this year, specifically early on in the season when the Lynx held the No. 2 position.

“I think we are surprising the competition since this is our first year.,” he said. “I think we’re an up-and-coming team. We are a bigger school but we don’t have a lot of members right now, so I think we are a surprise,” Johnson said.

Twenty-two students signed on this year, and Narum is optimistic the roster will double next year.

Prior to the state tournament, the Lynx competed for five weeks in April and May at the Garretson Gun Club, sharing the range with Garretson and Harrisburg teams. What is different about this league is that the Brandon Valley students only need to travel to the Garretson Gun Club to compete against other programs. Each week the team shoots and logs their scores into an online database maintained by the USA High School Clay Target League.

“It is an interesting activity in that sense because it is, if you will, based on an honor code in reporting scores. Every team does the same and it’s just based on trust that your giving accurate scores,” Lovrien said.

To elevate the program’s success, several volunteer coaches from across the area, including Bill Miller and Woody Gnadt, stepped up this year.

Miller, who is a life member at the Garretson Gun Club, said he’s “technically” a coach, but does double duty as a Gun Club member who takes charge of handing out shells and making sure the boards are filled out.

“We just taught a young man who’d never kept score before,” he said. “These kids are learning to shoot, but they’re also learning how to fill the trap houses with birds after an evening of shooting, and we’re anxious to teach the kids how to keep score, so we have them doing all aspects of trap shooting, and not just shooting.”

Miller said the Gun Club’s support for the high school program is twofold.

“We cut everything to the bone and also made it possible for the teams to sell advertising that we will post outdoors on the gun racks for a whole year,” he said. “One-hundred percent this raises goes to the youth club program because we’re trying to make it as price friendly as possible.”

Miller is optimistic the program will grow in numbers next season.

“I think it’s going to explode (in numbers) when word of mouth gets back to the school about how much fun they had,” he said.

For the first couple weeks of the season, Narum was ranked No. 1 in the state individually.

“Then, it gets in your head,” he said.

Despite the drop in the standings, he, along with teammate Tucker Trout, were each named to the 2017 South Dakota State High School Clay Target League All-State Team. Narum scored the honor behind his 22.8 season average, while Trout finished the spring season with a 20.8 average. They are among a group of 50 who earned the honor, which was recognized with a special All-State patch.

“It’s just something that I’m pretty good at, and a competitive sport that we get to use guns for, Narum said. “And it’s something that I’ll be doing for the rest of my life – hunting and using guns.”

2017 Spring Overall Standings

Class A – Conference 2

Team                Wk 1    Wk 2    Wk 3    Wk4     Wk5     Total

Mitchell             530       517.5    508       555.5    591.5    2,702.5

Brandon Valley   422       506       493       504       328       2,253

Winner/Colome   328       299.5    441.5    427.5    517.5    2,014

Timber Lake       393.5    265.5    282.5    331.5    348       1,621

Stanley County   309       333.5    219       233.5    197       1,292

Harrisburg          160       278       259.5    248       252.5    1,198

Chamberlain       135.5    285       281.5    185       250.5    1,137.5

BVHS State Tournament Scoring

                                                Session 1           Rev       Session 2           Rev                   Rev

Student             Class       Rank    Rd 1     Rd 2     Ret       Rd 1     Rd 2     Ret       Total    Ret

Anthony Auch    JV            T62       15          16         0          16         16         1          63         1

Keaton Beyer      JV           T65       19         12         0          13         18         2          62          2

Devin Carpenter  Novice    T6         18         18         36         17        16        5         69         5

Trevor Dean        Vars        T79       22         16         0          12         16         0          66          0

Alex Johnson      Vars        T39       21          21        7          16         22         3          80          3

Garrett Lien        Vars         T43      18          23         4          18         20         2          79          2

Kyle Narum        Vars         T34      20          17         0          23         22         15        82        15

Tyson Newton    Vars         T6        24          22         7          24         22         9          92          9

Nathan Popp       Vars        T79       9           18         0          17         22         0          66          0

Tucker Trout       Vars         T73     16           22         1          16         17         2          71          2

Target Count                                10          10                      10         10                     40

State tournament notables

Novice – Devin Carpenter – Team high gun male – 69

Jr. varsity – Anthony Auch – Team high gun male – 63

Varsity – Tyson Newton – Team high male – 92

State Tournament Team Scores (19 teams)

Platte-Geddes 471

Pierre TF Riggs 456

Hot Springs 435

Yankton 430

Brookings 428

Winner-Colome 412

Timber Lake 409

Brandon Valley 404

Milbank 392

Mitchell 390

Stanley County 377

Canton 377

Britton-Hecla 377

Elk Point-Vermillion 361

Bowdle 352

Garretson 34

Chamberlain 332

Gettysburg 325

Harrisburg 257